Lonely Ghosts
by kurisu christina
Summary: Faith, released from jail early to join a Dollhouse, escapes imprinted with Caroline Farrell and ends up as Echo. What will happen when Echo escapes and shows up in Sunnydale? Beginning of season 5  BTVS, before "Omega" Dollhouse
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own the shows Buffy, Dollhouse, or any of the character from them. I only own Terry the programmer and Anthony Stewart :)**

Prologue

"You...you're saying that I don't have to be in jail anymore?" Faith Lehane asked Anthony Stewart incredulously. "I turned myself in. I'm not running from anything...wouldn't want to have Angel come after me again if he heard I skipped out of jail."

"No," Anthony said, "you wouldn't be...skipping out, as you so plainly put it. We are a highly respected agency. You would be paying your debt to society, but for you it would be like falling asleep for five minutes."

"Falling asleep? What exactly do you do?"

Anthony poured himself a cup of coffee and settled down, expecting a long argument from the rebellious-looking young woman in front of him. "I...we run the Dollhouse, or I run one of them in Santa Monica. Adelle DeWitt runs another in L.A.. "

Faith nodded slowly, slightly puzzled. "Dollhouse?" It had been exactly a day since a whole group of the strangest men had come and brought her here, and still Faith had no idea why they wanted her.

"We specialize in...people. The perfect date, assassin, lawyer, chef, or whatever one happens to need. Our dolls are hired for five years of their life, and in return they receive a great deal of payment." Anthony said.

"People?" Faith slid her feet onto the table and ignored Anthony's cringing. "Like virtuosos or talented people or something? All I'm good for is fighting and partying, and even that can go wrong."

Anthony said, "Well, we have a way to erase a person's memories, and then imprint them with any personality, any person. Once you're done with your five years, we give back your original memories and get you out of whatever trouble you might be in, plus the fact that you'll be very rich."

Faith jumped away from the table. "You want to brainwash me? Hope you don't mind me saying this, but how will I know that I'll ever get my old memories back? You'll have 'em, not me." she watched Anthony warily. "How will I know you're not going to use me until I'm not pretty anymore?"

"No worries, Faith." Anthony said. "You have friends, I'm sure?"

_Does one vampire with a soul count? _"Listen, I didn't turn myself in because I wanted to rot in a tiny cell for years of my life. I did bad things...I killed people. That doesn't usually earn you many friends. the one person that was my friend was terrorized by me. Not to mention the fact that I slept with her boyfriend..."

"But you have friends."

"Angel. I think..."

Anthony offered Faith a cup. "Coffee? Tea? I completely forgot to ask."

Faith shook her head. "No. That's years of paranoia talking there, so no. Or as someone I used to know said, 'a world of no'."

"Your friends will wonder where you've gone, and the government-parts of it, anyway-keep a close watch on the Dollhouses. I promise you will get your old memories back. If you like, we can even change them to not include some of the less pleasant incidences of your life..."

Faith's breath caught in her chest, but she remained still, wondering what it would be like. _I could forget my childhood, and the mayor, and all the things I did and people I killed...Angel said it would always hurt, but what if it didn't have to? _"No tampering with my memories, thank you. I suppose I deserve to feel guilty for all the horrible things I've done."

"Very well." Anthony said pleasantly. "So you are signing up?"

"Like sleeping five minutes, you said?" she asked again. "That's it, and no funny tricks?"

"I promise."

She relented and stretched a hand across the table, shaking Anthony's hand.

"Welcome to the Dollhouse, Faith."

**O.o.O.o.O**

When she woke up exactly ten hours later, a man was standing there in front of her. "Hello, Whisper. How are you feeling?"

"Did I fall asleep?" she asked. Dolls were always the same.

He smiled. "For a little while."

"Shall I go now?"

"If you like."

Whisper walked out into the main room. There were lots of people. They must all be her friends. Whisper smiled. She liked friends. One walked by, and she did her best to smile. Everyone should do their best, right? "I think I'll swim in the pool," she said to no one.

**O.o.O.o.O**

"She's doing well?" Anthony asked Terry.

Terry had a smug expression. "Of course. Doesn't remember a thing... plus she's extremely strong for a girl her size. What did you say she was?"

"A Slayer. Just another oddity in this world."

"A Slayer, huh?" Tony asked. "Slayer of what?"

"That was what she wouldn't tell us."

"Ah. Would you like me to...you know. Check her memories out? We could use whatever makes her strong and find a way to implant it in all the dolls." Terry suggested.

Anthony shook his head. "Maybe, maybe not. There's a lot of strange thing s about her, though, things I'd like to know. For instance, what she slays, like you said. Where's she's from, if there's more of her, and how many people know about this besides us. But for now..."

"For now," Terry said, "She's just another doll. Another face in the crowd. Whisper."

**O.o.O.o.O**

Adelle DeWitt,

I know you run the Las Vegas Dollhouse, and it seems we have run into a very bad...incident. One of dolls, Whisper, has escaped, due to an unfortunate accident. Imprinted with Caroline Farrell, an animal rights activist, she was lost by her Handler, and never was wiped. We believe she may be in your area. If you see her I'd prefer you lead her to believe she's Caroline, not a doll. There was a major security issue with her real memories, which we can't give her back unless we want all the Dollhouses to be brought down. Her imprint, Caroline, is very close to uncovering Rossum, or even worse, us. You need to stop her.

Anthony Stewart

Head of Santa Monica Dollhouse

Anthony sighed and pressed a hand to his forehead. This was all just falling to pieces around him. He didn't want Adelle to know about Faith's strength or abilities, and he also didn't want Caroline to uncover Rossum because if she did he would lose his job and much more. The best he could do was make sure that Adelle's Dollhouse managed to apprehend Caroline and then all he would have left would be hiding her real memories so that Terry could do what he said he wanted to try; find the source of Faith's uncanny strength. Maybe with an army of super humans he wouldn't have to worry so much about losing his job.

**O.o.O.o.O**

Adelle DeWitt smiled over her cup of tea as Caroline was led away. Anthony had been absolutely right: Caroline had come straight to them, and would have uncovered Rossum if she hadn't been caught in one of their buildings trying to get out with all the info she needed to bring them crashing down. The only part she couldn't get was why Bennett had been working so late right near where they found Caroline, but that could wait for another day. Bennett was hospitalized, and as far as Adelle had been told, her left arm was paralyzed from the shoulder down. It wasn't Adelle's concern anyway. Bennett worked at a different Dollhouse. Caroline was there only concern.

The aforementioned person was being led away by Topher to be completely wiped, and turned into another one of the dolls.

"It's funny," she mused to herself, "A doll agreeing to be a doll. I wonder who she was in the first place?"

One thing Adelle had learned in all her years working here was not to question anything if it could benefit her and others without doing any harm. Anthony had said that whoever Caroline—or Whisper—had been before she was a doll had also found a way to bring Rossum down, and though Caroline had too, she had been convinced not to tell anyone.

"And all's well that ends well." She concluded, setting down her tea.

**O.o.O.o.O**

"She's already a doll?" Topher asked in amazement as he watched Caroline's blank face. He was taking her memories as Caroline. "Why don't we send her to her old Dollhouse?"

"There were liability issues, or something. She's different; look." His assistant, Ivy, handed him a juice box, then pointed at the screen. "She's inhumanely strong, but obviously they've got her thinking she's not."

Topher nodded, looking intently at the screen. "Yep. That tends to avoid the whole 'grrrrr' thing happening, should she decide she doesn't want to be a doll anymore."

"Ahhhh...I forgot to ask, shouldn't we be running tests on Alpha? thought he was compositing memories from assignments." The assistant looked down at Alpha, who had a peaceful expression on his face as he did yoga with a bunch of the other dolls.

"Mmmm-hmmm, later." Topher handed her a piece of paper. "Can you get these from the grocery?"

She rolled her eyes. "Topher, I'm here to learn, not to get your groceries."

"Yes, and there will be no learning until I'm fed." he shooed her with his hands. "—Go on."

"I hate you." There was a trace of affection in her voice. "Tell me how she is when she's finished."

Topher looked at Caroline, or what she had been. "Uh-huh." The girl in the chair was slowly lifted up, and looked at Topher, blinking in a confused way. "Hello, Echo. How are you feeling?" The best part of his job was definitely choosing names.

She looked around. "Did I fall asleep?"

"For a little while." The dialogue was routine; it made the transition from a person to an empty shell easier.

"Shall I go now?" she asked dreamily.

"If you like."

With a little smile Echo walked into the L.A. Dollhouse. "Hello," she said, looking at Alpha.

"Hello. You're new."

"Yes."

Alpha smiled back in a childlike way. "Yes. We all try our best. I swam thirty laps in the pool today."

"That's good." Echo agreed. "I will try my best, too."

She nodded politely and then walked in the direction of the pool. She didn't even see Alpha staring at where she had been, long after she had disappeared.

**O.o.O.o.O**

Adelle DeWitt,

I know you're on vacation, but...there was a kind of bad thing that happened at the Dollhouse. Someone-who I assume had to be Alpha-came back and ravaged all our security guards, then let all the dolls go. I know, "Why didn't he kill the dolls?" Echo didn't want him to, I guess. She and a few others got out before back up came in and scared Alpha away with guns. There haven't been any reports, no one has seen her since she had her last assignment. She is gone. I'll be taking all the precautions to keep Alpha out for good, but I think Echo's lost to us. In her childlike state she won't last long anyway. I won't get rid of the records we have of her unless you are sure she won't be coming back.

Topher,

Dollhouse programmer

**A/N: So what do you think? I know this isn't my first fic ("The Gift" is), but it's definatley going to be interesting. Please, please review, because reviews make me happy ;)**


	2. Buffy vs Dracula

**A/N: Some of the dialogue in here is quoted from the episode "Buffy vs. Dracula" and I do not own it, I am only borrowing it for creative purposes.**

Buffy Summers and her friends were all enjoying a day at the beach. That is, she was playing football with Riley while the rest of them watched Xander try to light a fire for hamburgers.

She spun in the air, triumphantly waving the football around her head. "Oh yeah! Another point for Team me!"

Riley caught the football when she tossed it back to him. "Did anyone tell you that the quarterback on Team you throws like a girl?"

"I do?"

"Just a little."

She caught the ball and contemplated it a minute before throwing it directly at Riley's head, then saying, "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to throw that hard!" when it soundly whacked him in the head and sent him sprawling.

Five minutes later, after he had tackled her and sent her flying into the water, they joined Xander, Anya, Willow, and Tara on the beach blankets.

"No more fun and games?" Xander asked.

Riley held up an airless football. "Buffy slayed the football."

"I didn't mean to."

"Yeah, yeah." He pulled her into his lap and hugged her waist. "Xander, the fire still not ready?"

"Yeah." said Buffy. "I want my burger, I'm hungry!"

"Alas, no." Xander said. "I lack the culinary skills of even a caveman."

Willow waved her hand and started to speak a Latin spell but Tara shook her head. "Remember what happened last time?"

"Right...rain inside the house." Willow mumbled.

Buffy remembered the very colorful incident a few weeks ago at Giles' house. "You've been improving a lot, though." she encouraged hopefully. "Haven't lit anything on fire for a long time."

"It's okay, baby." Tara said. "You can try some other time... just not near other beach-goers."

Willow brightened. "Okay."

Buffy sighed with genuine happiness as she leaned back into Riley. Almost a week with no major vamp issues or demon parties she'd had to crash. Even the Initiative—or what was left of it—was barely doing anything demon or vampire related now. Best of all, a certain brooding, handsome vampire had kept his promise, and she hadn't seen him in months.

"Hey..." Tara shade her eyes and looked across the beach to the docks. "... doesn't she look oddly familiar? I think I've seen her before..."

Buffy inclined her head. A tall, dark-haired woman was acing restlessly below the dock were the water met the sand. "Nah. Why, does she make you think of someone bad?"

"No. I thought she was someone you knew, someone I saw in a picture." Tara laid her head in Willow's lap. "Guess I was wrong."

Buffy looked closer at the woman. She seemed distressed, and she was mumbling to herself. People kept going the opposite was as her and one little boy tried to talk to her but got dragged away by his mom. "I'm going to see if she needs help."

"Want backup?" Riley asked. He looked so peaceful, basking in the sun that Buffy shook her head.

"No. I'll be back in a minute."

As she walked closer, Buffy thought the woman was saying, "Did I fall asleep?" over and over. When the woman turned she looked at Buffy, eye wide in confusion, and Buffy looked back. Pure terror filled her stomach.

"Faith." It was like the name meant the same thing as death and destruction.

"Did I fall asleep?" Faith repeated in a panicked fashion. Whatever game she was up to, it definitely wasn't one of the old standards.

"For a little while," Buffy said sarcastically. "More like eight months in a coma, remember? Then you stole my body and slept with my boyfriend! I'm not stupid, Faith. What's your game?"

Faith looked at her, eyes unblinking. "Shall I go now?"

"Yes! Get out of Sunnydale, leave my friends alone!"

"Shall I go n-now?"

Buffy groaned. "Don't tell me you're going to keep doing that. My friends are here too, see? They can protect themselves...more or less..."

Faith kept backing away as Buffy advanced. "Shall I-I go n-n-now?"

"Stop that!" Buffy said. "Just stop! You want to kill me? Go ahead, try."

"Shall I—"

"Go now? Yes, you need to leave Sunnydale before I break every bone in your body and leave you to the government or the Initiative." Buffy shoved Faith to the ground, were she laid unmoving, terror in her eyes. "What are you waiting for? Hit me back! You afraid?"

Buffy was furious, trying to forget all the things Faith had done, but she couldn't help it. Now Faith was going to play innocent? No way.

Something seemed to click, and Faith leapt up clumsily and tried to hit Buffy. Instead she hit one of the dock's supports and went spinning into the water.

Buffy laughed. "Cute. So you can't fight, either?" It was another story if Faith was willing to be beaten to death. Well, not death, but it was still different.

Faith got up and tackled Buffy lightly into the sand. Stunned, she shoved blindly, and Faith went flying into something.

"Riley! Riley, it's Faith!" Buffy screamed for good measure, knowing Faith's game wouldn't last forever.

When Buffy got up Faith was cowering by the water, shivering. "Shall I go n-now? Shall I go now? Shall I-I g-go now?"

Riley and the others came racing down the beach, Tara in tow. "Are you okay? Is she... Faith?"

"She's playing some kind of game." Buffy said. "She can't fight, and all she says is 'Shall I go now?' and 'Did I fall asleep?'"

Faith backed farther into the water. "Shall I go now?" her head tilted like a questioning puppy.

Tara approached her, hands held out like she was approaching a skittish dog. "Hey...are you Faith?" she looked to Willow and mouthed "Faith?" curiously. Willow nodded. "Are you okay?"

"Is she OKAY!" Xander spluttered. "She attacked Buffy and she's playing head games! Be careful; she might try to seduce you."

Anya glared at him. "You _would _know."

Xander's eye twitched. "No..."

"Don't deny it Don't worry, I know you love me more. Right?."

"Oh...yes! Definitely!"

"Faith?" Tara repeated patiently. She was crouching in front of the terrified and incoherent Faith. "Are you even Faith at all?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "It's a game. You should probably just back away, and then we can turn her into the government. Or the Watcher's Council."

"No." Tara insisted. "I think she might be drugged. Faith, sweetie, are you okay?"

Faith stopped shaking. "Shall I go now?"

"What is with that?" Riley asked. "Go where?"

"Away. " Buffy said firmly. "Far, far away." she protectively wove her fingers through his. Faith wasn't going to get him again.

Tara shook her head. "No, I think that maybe it's some sort of codeword or phrase that she wants. Um...yes, you may go."

"Shall I go now?" Faith repeated.

"You may go, Faith." 

"Shall I go now?"

Anya shrugged. "Oh well, you tried. How about jail?"

"Anya..."

Faith looked more closely at Buffy. "A world... a world..."

"What's that?" Tara peered into Faith's eyes. "A world?"

"Shall I go now?"

"Yes." Buffy said slowly. "Y-E-S, Yes."

Willow pulled some herbs out of her bag. "Magic, maybe? She might have some sort of amnesia."

"We can't do memory spells yet, not without the books..." Tara said softly. "Okay?"

"Okay." Willow said. "What else can we do?"

"Well," Tara said, "We could take her home."

"Shall I go now?" Faith sounded more desperate. "Shall I go now?"

"If you like." Tara tried, and Faith's eyes lit up. She looked around warily.

"Where is Topher?"

"Oh, someone have a bad boyfriend?" Anya teased. "Did he drop you off in Sunnydale because you tried to kill him, too?"

Faith got to her feet. "Who is Faith?"

"You," Buffy snarled. "Now that you seem to be a little better, why don't you get out before I break very bone in your body?"

"Is she a new friend?" Faith questioned. "Are they wiping her?"

Xander said, "Is it me or did that sound really dirty?"

"Xander!" Tara scolded, turning red. "It probably means something else to her. What is your name?"

Faith gazed across the ocean. "Topher...I think he calls me Echo."

"Okay, _Echo_," Buffy said, "Who are you if you're not Faith?"

"Echo."

"Echo who?" Buffy persisted, glaring at the blank look on Echo's face. "Echo Lehane?"

"Just Echo, please," Echo said. She seemed less nervous, and casually looked around. "Are you all dolls?"

Anya nearly jumped at Echo, but Xander held her back. Willow looked disturbed. "Dolls?" Tara questioned gently. "No, we're not… dolls. We're people. Are you a doll?"

Echo smiled like a little girl. "Yes!"

Riley was holding back a fuming Buffy but said, "Shouldn't we take her somewhere? You know, in case she suddenly gains her memory back?"

Tara said, "Can you stand?"

Echo got up to her feet willingly enough, but winced a little and touched her knee. "Something heavy fell on me. I think it was her." She looked at Buffy, but there was no hostility in her eyes. "Can we go see Dr. Saunders? Is she here? Whenever heavy things fall on me, she helps me."

"That sounds really nice, but we don't know Dr. Saunders," said Willow, finally joining Tara by Echo. "Here, Tara and I will help you walk."

Slowly the little group straggled up to the blankets, then gathered their things and headed to the car. The whole time Echo talked about things like she was only five or six years old, happily observing everything in the vast world.

"Oh, is that a bird? There are never birds inside… I think I draw them sometimes. No, Sierra draws them."

Buffy cuddled up closer to Riley in the back seat (technically the middle, since the car had three rows of seats), thankful that "Echo" was behind them with Willow and Tara. Xander and Anya were up front, Xander explaining to Anya how cars worked. "Riley?"

"Yeah?"

"It has to be Faith." She mumbled. "You… shouldn't you just _know_?"

The pained look on his face said it all. "I've said I'm sorry a million times, Buffy, but I didn't think that… I would never compare you. Not to her. Besides, she's not acting very Faith-like, according to you and everyone else. I couldn't know."

Buffy looked at Faith, or Echo, and the pure, innocent gleam in her eyes. She was like a child. Even Buffy could tell that she had no intent of hurting anyone, at least not now. "I'm… I am sorry. She makes me feel threatened. Last time she was here she took away everything that was mine, then used it until she was bored. She's a killer. Okay, maybe the whole 'going-to-jail' thing helped a little, but she took Angel away from me too, and that I'm not okay with." Angel. Last time she'd seen him he'd come to apologize for…well, that. Hitting her to keep Faith safe, though she didn't blame him. Faith had probably tricked him and then escaped. She probably broke out of jail after the first day.

Riley squeezed her waist tighter and kissed her head. "I still love you, just so you know. She won't take me away."

"No," Buffy said morbidly, "not unless she remembers who she is and kills you in your sleep."

"Well, there's an upside to everything, isn't there?"

**O.o.O.o.O**

The first thing Giles did when he saw Echo/Faith was yelp, throw his coffee cup in the air, and then ungracefully dive for his weapons before Willow shouted, "It's okay! She doesn't know who she is!"

He was now looking carefully at her eyes and shining a flashlight into them. "Tell me again, your name is….?"

"Echo." Echo repeated happily, swinging her legs back and forth. "My name is Echo." She had sat quietly enough while Tara had wrapped her injured knee, and now she was letting Giles do his best at trying to determine whether what she was suffering was amnesia or not.

"Not Faith."

"No. I don't know any person named Faith. Is she lost?"

Buffy opened her mouth, but before she could say something snarky Riley effectively silenced her with his own mouth. "Not fair," she protested when he let go. "I wasn't going to say anything mean!"

"Of course you weren't."

Anya was already bored with the entire thing and was lounging on Xander's lap. "I don't see why any of you care. Send her to a hospital or something, and when she gets better she can go to jail."

Xander sighed. "Anya, honey, this could be magic related."

"Then why not leave her as is?" Buffy asked suddenly. "I mean, no guilt for her and no danger for us. Win-win, right?"

Tara shook her head. "But she could be hurt, or this could be a spell that could potentially backfire." She seemed to have taken charge of making sure that Echo was okay, and not scared.

"White knight," Echo mumbled, giggling. "White knight." She looked at Xander.

"Yeah, sweetie, he's a good guy. We know." Tara said patiently. Giles handed her the flashlight he's been using and went for a book. "The name Faith still not ringing a bell?"

"Is she lost?"

"You could say that." Buffy managed, snorting. "There is a humorous side to this entire thing, you know. She is so beyond lost. Or crazy, you ever consider that?'

Giles came back, hands empty. "The only two volumes that have to do with memory spells this strong against counter spells—" he gestured to Willow, who was chanting softly from a book "—that we've tried for nearly an hour are in the Magic Box."

"Blue skies," Echo said. "What is the Magic Box?"

"Blue skies?" Tara repeated, catching onto the unfamiliar phrase.

Buffy flinched. "Five by five," she whispered.

"Do you think it could be the same thing?" asked Willow, putting down her spell book. "I can't do anything else with the spells, nothing works. Buffy, are you okay?"

Buffy had slowly lowered herself to the floor and was staring blankly at Echo. "She said everything was five by five. I'm fine, Will." She shakily righted herself. "I think she might remember something."

"What's five by five?" Echo asked, looking around with more confusion at the conversation about the girl that was lost. "Faith said five by five?"

"Apparently." Tara linked her fingers with Willow's.

"There's nothing we can do, though." Giles said suddenly, getting the room's full attention. "Buffy, aren't you supposed to be watching Dawn? You said you couldn't train today—"

"I should be there now." Buffy admitted. "Who's going to watch Faith?"

"Echo."

"Fine." Buffy huffed. "_Echo_. She still has strength, I'm sure of it. What if she went psycho and killed one of you?"

"If you watch her you have to promise you won't harm her out of spite." Giles admonished.

Buffy said, "But what about Dawnie? I don't want some homicidal loony anywhere near her either."

Giles sighed and took off his glasses, methodically cleaning away invisible dirt. "Buffy, she will be fine. I don't see Echo going crazy on you anytime soon, so you should be okay."

"Fine." Buffy grumbled, sizing up Echo. "C'mon, braindead girl, you're going home with me."

Anya perked up at once. "We can go?"

Giles nodded. "There's really no reason to stay."

"Good!" she cried, pulling Xander to his feet. "Xander, let's go home and—"

Before she could say anything, Xander cut in, "—and put all the beach stuff away! Good idea."

Willow and Tara got up too, scooping up her magic book. "Let's go home, I want to see Miss Kitty Fantastico." Willow said. "We got her a new feather toy," she explained to the others.

"Yeah, it's blue and silver, with little puffballs on it." Tara agreed enthusiastically. The two smiled as they left, and Buffy reluctantly walked over to Echo.

"Coming?" she asked.

Echo nodded, and hopped off the table. "Of course."

Riley said, "I can't come, I have to go and meet Graham. It's about the Initiative."

"Okay, but maybe later we can go somewhere?"

"Sure. Have fun with... Echo." he said, heading out.

Buffy sighed inwardly and motioned for Echo to follow her. "Let's re-introduce you to my Mom. I'll bet she'll be so happy to see the psycho killer's back."

"Buffy," Giles warned her, "you can't just let her make her own conclusions. At least tell her Echo is harmless."

"Fine." It was funny to think of Echo getting thrown in jail if her Mom called the police, but Buffy knew it would only complicate matters.

**O.o.O.o.O**

At home the first thing Buffy did when she opened the door was yell, "Mom, I'm HOOOOOMMMEEE! Faith is here too, but she's not evil," then hear Dawn yell back, "Mom's WOOOOORKING! Go away, Faith!"

When Dawn actually came downstairs, she gave Echo a critical look. "Hi, Faith. Come to kill more people?"

"No," Echo said calmly. "I'm Echo. I don't know who Faith is, but people keep talking about her. Is she lost? No one will tell me."

"You _are _Faith," Dawn said, confused. "Buffy, what's up with her?"

Buffy shrugged. "Memory spell? Giles couldn't figure it out, so say hello to our new house guest."

"Ew," Dawn said. She peered at Echo's face more carefully. "She doesn't seem angry."

"I'm not angry." Echo agreed. "Why would I be? It's a little confusing here, but I'm not angry."

Dawn just left it at that and helped herself to juice from the fridge. "What are we going to do, wait for her to go off like a bomb? What about when you're on patrol?"

"When I'm on patrol," Buffy said sarcastically, "I'm going to leave you and Mom alone and unarmed in the house. I'm taking her with me, duh."

"Just as well. Mom and I are going to have a girl's night out and I wouldn't want her to trash the house and steal all our belongings."

**O.o.O.o.O**

"So, Faith...still not popular with the Scoobies?" Tara asked as she braided Willow's red hair. "I thought everyone was awfully tense."

"No." Willow was cuddling their little black and white kitten, Miss Kitty Fantastico, leaning back against Tara. "She did a lot of things that hurt Buffy. I think the worst of it is that she and Buffy were actually really close for a while, and then Faith killed the mayor's deputy by accident... things went downhill from there."

"Yeah. So she can be d-dangerous?" Tara asked. "Not now, but she could be? I mean, I only met her the one t-time, and that wasn't when she was in her own b-body." The blonde remembered every one of the hurtful things Faith had said to her.

"Don't worry, Tara." The redhead reached her hand up and squeezed Tara's hand. "Buffy's always been able to handle her."

Tara nodded. "I'm sure she can handle Echo just fine. There's just so much h-hurt when she looks at Echo…I'm more worried for Echo than for Buffy."

"I know what you mean." Willow giggled at the squirming kitten. "Do you know, Miss Kitty?"

Miss Kitty Fantastico mewed and wriggled her way out of Willow's arms, happily running to one of her squeaky toys. The little kitten reared up, batting it with tiny paws.

"She's the sweetest thing ever." Tara said with a smile. She tossed a toy mouse over to Miss Kitty. "Yes you are, Miss Kitty. You're the prettiest kitten ever."

Willow looked out of their dorm window. "I'll bet Buffy's going to patrol soon, it's getting dark. You almost done braiding?"

"Yeah." Tara turned her attention back to Willow's hair and finished the last elegant French braid, so there was one on each side of Willow's head. "You look beautiful."

Willow blushed deeply. "Thanks. I think I'll head over to Xander's, he was going to patrol with Buffy. Want to come?"

"I-I'm going to work on a spell, and then study later." Tara said. "Have fun, but be careful, will you?"

"Don't worry." Willow grinned back at Tara as she got up and opened the door. "I'm an expert vamp duster."

**O.o.O.o.O**

Echo was crouching against the damp ground behind a tree watching Buffy beat up a funny-looking man. Buffy had explained to her earlier that the men with ridges over their eyes were vampires, and she wasn't supposed to go near them because they were bad. They did look scary, so Echo obeyed Buffy and hid behind trees and gravestones while Buffy fought.

The one she was fighting now growled in frustration as Buffy kept it back, blocking punches and kicking him back until he was off guard, and then she staked him. Echo didn't understand why the vampire went _poof_ into dust, but since they were bad it was probably a good thing.

Buffy looked over her shoulder at Echo. "You okay back there?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Echo said, shivering. This graveyard gave her the creeps.

She watched as Buffy shrugged and paced forward, stalking her next victim. It was getting awfully cold. Echo hugged her arms around her body and rocked back and forth on her feet. Just ahead she heard an ominous voice say something about "Buffy Summers", so she must have found another vampire. When Echo peeked her head out she felt even more terrified. The vampire was tall and paler than the others she had seen, with long black hair.

"Are you sure you're Dracula?" drifted over to where Echo was standing. Buffy sounded skeptical. Who was Dracula, anyway? Echo didn't know. The weird thing was that Buffy kept talking to this vampire, almost transfixed by his stare. She didn't stake him, not even when her friend joined her. After a minute the vampire, Dracula, disappeared into the night, turning into a bat. Echo leaned her head against the tree.

…_shaking, on the ground, terrified, can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe…she had to tell him, but she couldn't talk. They would take Devina away and he would never see her…you can't see a ghost…she reached for her inhaler and jammed it in her mouth frantically, but couldn't stop dropping it. They would never get Devina back, never, because he would kill the others and then use her….you can't fight a ghost, but ghosts are heavy….._

"Echo?" Echo blinked up at Willow, Xander, and Buffy, who were all giving her very strange looks.

"Ghosts are heavy." She said solemnly. She didn't know what it meant, but it was important. "You can't fight a ghost."

"Ghosts don't tend to be heavy." Willow said in her cheery voice. Echo had noticed how happy she was. It made her feel good.

"But this one is." Echo insisted. "There's a dock, and a little girl named Devina, and a heavy ghost that did bad things to somebody."

"And this is why she belongs in a loony bin." Buffy said with a shrug. "Who knows what that even means in crazy-person speak?"

Xander just shook his head. "Never mind the heavy ghosts, shouldn't we get out of here before Dracula comes back?"

"Yes. Come on, Echo." Buffy prompted, nudging Echo with her foot.

As they trailed out of the graveyard Echo followed a few feet behind, listening to them tall about this Dracula person. They all seemed upset, even Willow. Echo had noticed that Willow, and the other girl, Tara, were the happiest out of the group. Xander was a goof on the outside, but somehow Echo knew he was the real "knight in shining armor", though the phrase didn't make sense to her. Buffy was too held back. She was cheerful on the outside, along with a great deal of sarcasm, but there was hurt and pain and abandonment in her eyes. Echo decided that bad things must have happened to her when she was younger. As for the other—Anya, Riley, and Giles—they seemed normal. Anya didn't mind saying things the others wouldn't, and Echo wondered why the others yelled at her when she did. Giles thought a lot—he considered what would happen before he did something. Riley…Riley was just ordinary, but he really did care. He seemed to want Buffy to be safe, and he was always hovering nearby her if he was holding her hand or kissing her. It made Echo think of something that was similar, but she didn't know what it was exactly.

…_she saw him walking up. "Good—" before she could finish he smiled, leaned down, and kissed her on the lips. "—day." She finished, unaffected._

"_Echo, you're beautiful." Alpha said appraisingly. "And you're special."_

"_I try to be my best." She replied calmly. Alpha was very different from the other dolls._

_He kissed her again and she couldn't help but smile a little. He liked to follow her and watch her, and he said she was number one. That wasn't true, though. Whiskey was definitely number one. She was really talented and pretty, so people came to see her and take her places all the time. She had to get the most treatments. Echo thought she was nice._

"_Hey!" one of the Handlers said when he saw Alpha kissing Echo. "What are you doing?"_

"_Did I do something wrong?" Alpha asked, innocent as a child. The Handler looked at Echo._

"_Go to bed." He commanded. _

_Echo did, and went to sleep without a care in the world…_

She shook her head. It was strange, all these flashes she was getting. They didn't make any sense. There were ghosts, and dolls that didn't exist, and feelings of being scared and hunted and alone. But seeing as they were safely out of the graveyard by and near Buffy's house, Echo knew that is was ridiculous to be scared.

"Echo, hurry up!" Buffy shouted impatiently. "Do you _want _to be locked out of the house?"

"No. I'm coming." Echo said cheerfully, running to the door and jumping through before Buffy could slam it shut. "I was thinking about things."

"Really? How interesting." Was Buffy's snide reply as she headed into the kitchen. "Mom and Dawn are sleeping, so try to be quiet, will you?"

"Okay." Echo sat down on the couch, and Willow and Xander followed.

"Hey, Buff, you coming?" Xander asked. She appeared in the doorway with a bowl of popcorn five minutes later and held it up.

"Oh." Willow moved so that Buffy had room to sit.

Echo observed quietly from her spot on the couch. Buffy was still talking about Dracula, and she and Willow both agreed that he had "deep" eyes.

"So," Willow turned to Echo, "what were you thinking about? You said you were thinking about things."

"Someone named Alpha." Echo said. "I don't know where he is from because he's a doll but he's not real. He walked up to me once and kissed me."

Xander snorted so hard he blew popcorn across the room. "Well, alright then."

"And before that there was the little girl, Devina, and the docks and asthma and the heavy ghost." Echo continued, oblivious to the amusement on Buffy's face. "It never makes any sense."

Buffy managed to swallow her giggles. "Uh-huh. Well, I think I'll go to bed after all." She glanced back at the others who mumbled agreement and got up to leave.

"Tomorrow we'll try to figure out what you keep remembering." Willow promised. She was so nice.

With that thought on her mind Echo went up to the guest bedroom and snuggled under the covers.

…_she sat in a pool of red, naked. Bodies were strewn all around her, cur and dripping red like what she was sitting in. The others weren't moving. Why wouldn't they move?_

_A bunch of men with guns streamed in above her, along the walkways. They all looked down, horror etched on their faces._

"_They won't wake up." Echo said softly. The men would wake her friends up, and they would find Alpha, were ever he went…_

**O.o.O.o.O**

The next morning Buffy was in a decidedly bad mood. The Dracula thing was still weighing heavily on her mind, plus the fact that Echo—no, it was Faith, whatever the others said—was in her house. Those were just two unacceptable things that she could deal with.

Echo was already up when she came downstairs. What Buffy would have given to wake up next to Riley in the frat house and the Initiative's old base of operation. Sadly she had stayed at home all night, alert for any noise from Echo's room.

"Goodmorning." Echo piped in a cheery voice. It was surreal to here such happiness coming from Faith's mouth. "Did you have funny dreams?'

"None of your business." Buffy threw together something to eat and headed for the door. "Come on, I'm heading to Giles' and I'm not leaving you in this house alone with my sister."

"Your sister?" Echo asked curiously. "You mean Dawn?"

"Yes, Dawn." Buffy impatiently grabbed Echo's arm and propelled her forward.

"But she's not your sister."

"What?" Buffy stepped back. "She's not my sister? I think I would know if she wasn't."

"She's not." Echo insisted in the same dreamy, monotone voice. "She's all sparkly and green."

Buffy sighed. "As Giles would say, 'Oh dear'. You're really losing it now. Just…come on. And stop talking like a crazy person before someone throws you in an asylum."

Echo followed her faithfully enough (so many puns, so little time), talking to herself in a little sing-song voice whenever she saw something she didn't recognize. That meant she pretty much wouldn't shut up the entire time.

When she reached Giles' house she saw Tara and Willow were already there, as were Anya and Xander. Riley snuck up behind her, arms snaking around her waist as he leaned in to kiss her.

"My morning is suddenly looking up." she said.

"Mine too." said Riley. "Any trouble with her on patrol last night?"

"Nah." She assured him. "It's just…weird, y'know? I used to fight by her side and know she's all useless and stuff. Well, not useless, per se, but she hid for the most part."

"I get it." He assured her, leading her to the door. "I'm sure a few lessons and she'd—"

"—murder us all? Yes, that's exactly what I want to do."

Thought they arrived in the morning it wasn't until well after lunch they started talking. Xander had amused them with various Faith-related stories, as had Buffy, and then they had started a Faith pun contest while Tara prayed Echo wouldn't be offended. Luckily she wasn't, and tried to join in a few times. After a noisy lunch and another round of punning they finally got to work.

"And Buffy's all 'look out!' and then freakin' Dracula is standing right behind me!" Xander exclaimed, gesturing wildy.

Willow continued, "And then he lunges at us, like, 'whoosh!'"

"He totally turned into a bat." Xander finished, bowing like he expected applause, then settling down next to Anya.

Buffy, one eye on Echo at all times, said, "I can't believe he came to see me. Count Fangy came to see me!"

"I didn't really get it the first twenty times you told me, but now it's sinking in." teased Riley.

"I'm sorry, I'm repeat-o girl." Buffy said, giving Riley a curious look. "I was just…blown away."

"I get it." He said quickly. "You are the Slayer." He made it sound like he'd rather that she not be the Slayer. Buffy gave him another look.

"I guess…the way he said stuff made it sound so—" she began, unsure how to phrase it.

"Sexy?" Willow offered. "I bet he made it sound sexy."

Echo lifted her head. "What?"

"Nothing." said Buffy, brushing her aside. "And yeah, kinda…he had the dark, penetrating eyes and the cool accent."

"Yeah…" Willow agreed dreamily as Tara handed her a drink and perched on the edge of the couch.

"You thought Dracula was sexy?" Tara questioned dubiously.

Willow realized her mistake. "Oh….! No, he was…yuck."

"Except for the whole tall, dark, and handsome thing, yucko." Anya said cheerfully.

"How would you know?" Xander asked, clearly put out.

Anya said, "We hung out a few times back in my demon days, you know, once or twice. You know, from a whole 'evil thing' perspective." She added the last part as a look of horror crept across Xander's face.

"Please, he was no big whup." Xander said. He looked around as if to say, "Right?"

"No big whup? What about that thing where he turned into a bat, that was awesome!" protested Willow.

Giles spoke up. "Yes, that must have been interesting. I'm sorry, I missed that."

"Me too!" Willow agreed a little too heartily. "The whole time I was thinking, 'gosh, I wish Giles were here he'd know what to do!' Didn't you guys think that too?" she looked around hopefully at Xander and Buffy.

"Actually, I was thinking 'bat!'" Buffy said. She took another suspicious look at Echo. She was just so quiet and peaceful…it was hard to think of her as guilty anymore.

"How com he can do that?" Xander asked.

"I have no idea." Giles admitted. "There's a lot of myths about Dracula, beating him with entail separating fact from fiction."

"Great idea!" Willow piped up, overenthusiastic. "That is so…so Giles! We would have never…y'know, thought of that." She shrank under several perplexed gazes.

"We should start slow with Dracula." said Buffy. "He said we would 'meet again', but I would like to avoid that until we do some serious homework."

"I don't know," Riley said, a growing look of frustration on his face, "he may have a few swell party tricks, but he's still just a vampire. I say we load up the stakes and crossbows and go after him now."

"I say yes." Xander agreed.

Anya shook her head. "No, Buffy's right, Dracula's too slick to fall for the usual stuff."

"He looked stupid to me." Echo said softly, but nobody paid much attention.

Buffy purposefully ignore her. "We'll hold off. No killing until we know what we're dealing with."

"Not just saying that because of his 'deep, penetrating eyes', are you?" Riley asked, just about as insecure as he could get.

"No…" Buffy started unconvincingly, coming to stand next to Riley. "His eyes were…they were…there was no penetration, I swear." When his eyebrows practically disappeared in his hairline, she added, "Cross my heart."

**O.o.O.o.O**

Echo yawned and stretched as the group finally started getting up and getting ready to leave. It was already starting to turn dark outside. Tara and Willow were leaving just then, Xander and Anya behind them.

"Are we going?" Echo asked timidly.

Buffy was too wrapped up with Riley to notice. She had both of his hands, and they were kissing for the hundredth time that day. "See?" she told Riley hopefully. "A little sugar and I'm all yours. Dracula Shmacula."

"Are we leaving?" Echo repeated. Buffy sighed and nodded.

"Yes, Echo, we're leaving. Bye." She kissed Riley again, then grabbed her jacket.

The walk home was very quiet, so Echo thought about all the weird stuff that she had remembered about earlier. The kept thinking about the names "Bonnie" and "Clyde", but had no idea why and no idea who they were. There were so many names and faces that were in her head, but they didn't match up like they should've.

"Hello, door standing open." said Buffy, interrupting her train of thought. She pulled Echo inside. "It's late, you should get to bed. Don't wake up Mom or Dawn." With that she turned abruptly and huffily made her way to the kitchen. Echo obediently went upstairs, brushed her teeth, and slid under her covers.

An hour later she was tossing and turning. Everything was so foreign to her. She felt like she should be sleeping in the ground or in a box, not on this high-up bed. That didn't make any sense, but she wanted it.

There was a rustle from Buffy's room, and a low, male voice. Echo slid out of bed and crept to the wall, pressing her ear to it. She heard something to the effect of "killer" and "deep eyes" but it was hard to tell.

"I'm not disobeying." Echo reasoned as she tiptoed out into the hallway. "I won't wake up Dawn or Mrs. Summers."

She padded silently to Buffy's door and peered through the crack of the opening. Dracula was seated on Buffy's bed, his face inches from hers. He was telling her something in a hushed, breathy voice, and she seemed absolutely fine with him being in her room as well as his close proximity. He leaned in closer and spoke in her ear, causing her to shiver. Echo felt a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach. She almost thought she knew what he was going to do, but couldn't place it. He was a vampire…so he would...he would…

He went the whole way and bit into her neck, making her spasm slightly, but she didn't try to shove him away. Vampires bit people. Right.

This new knowledge scared Echo. She wasn't strong enough to fight, but she couldn't just watch Buffy get killed. She seemed so nice all the time. She was about to open the door and scream, hoping it would break Dracula's hold on Buffy, when Buffy's eyes closed and she slumped over. Dracula smiled and vanished out the window as a trickle of mist.

"Buffy?" Echo pushed the door open and crawled to Buffy's bed, tapping her face lightly. "Buffy?"

After a second Buffy drew a shuddering breath, but she didn't wake. Echo decided she must be fine. Maybe Dracula thought her blood was icky.

As she was about to leave Echo turned back and looked at Buffy's face, bathed in the moonlight. It was so familiar…

_…hand to Buffy's neck, Faith grinned. They both had each other with a knife at the other's throat, and both were tense and ready to kill their opponent. For a second Faith believed Buffy could do it. Just for a second._

_ "You can't do it, B." Faith smirked. "Kill me, and you become me."_

_ Buffy's hand faltered just a little, and Faith batted it aside. She saw horror deep in Buffy's eyes: horror from her betrayal, and taking Angel, all of it. For just an act, Faith had gotten a lot of mouth action with Angel. Really must've bothered Buffy._

_Still Buffy couldn't say a thing, so Faith did. "Thanks, B." She said, and she grabbed Buffy's head, kissing her before she ran into the night. She would be back soon…_

Echo shivered. It had been like she was watching the whole scene unfold, not like the others, where she was the person there. Faith looked a lot like her. Faith didn't seem very nice, either.

"Goodnight…B." Echo ventured, backing out of the room.

"G'night…" was the drowsy reply. "Night…...Faith."

**O.o.O.o.O**

The next morning when her alarm went off Buffy nearly jumped out of her bed. She couldn't understand why, but it felt like she was being watched.

"I am not a morning person." She groaned, rolling her head. She felt a twinge on the right side of her neck. Trancelike, she got up and slowly approached the mirror, bringing her hand to her hair. Brushing it aside, she revealed two small punctures in her neck. "Oh no. No, no, no, this is not happening!"

"There was some guy in your room last night." Echo said, and Buffy hurriedly pulled her hair over her neck. "I saw him. He bit you, but then he was gone and you were breathing, so I thought you were fine." She tipped her head to the side. 'Did…did Faith ever kiss you? You know, here?" she tapped her forehead.

"Dracula was really here?—Wait, what was that about Faith? Did she _kiss _me?" Buffy spluttered. "Okay, one thing at a time. Dracula was here, he really bit me?"

Echo nodded solemnly. "Yes. You seemed okay with it."

"Not happening, so not happening." Buffy said, clenching her fists. "And what was that about Faith kissing me?"

"I saw something." Echo explained like it was obvious. "Faith looked like me, you both had knives and both had them against each other's throats. She said you would become her if you killed her, thanked you, and kissed you. Right here." She tapped her head again.

"You saw it?" Buffy demanded. She had already had enough of the weird comments about ghosts and Devina and bad men and all the other things that Echo constantly brought up.

"Yes. One minute I was looking at you and then I saw it like I was standing right there." Echo said. "I don't think Faith is very nice."

Buffy snorted. "Hop aboard the irony train."

"What?"

"Oh…nevermind. Just go get dressed and be ready to leave." Buffy paused. "Echo?"

"Yeah?"

"Please don't mention the thing with Dracula to anyone, okay?"

"Okay." Echo promised, turning away and hippity-hopping down the hallway like a five-year-old.

As soon as she was gone Buffy shuddered and drew a hand to her neck again. She had to hide the marks for some reason she couldn't fathom. They'd be so disappointed that she had let Dracula just waltz in and sample her blood like she was the one-stop Slayer buffet. He might even come back…

But that was a place with deep penetrating eyes that Buffy kept telling herself were neither deep nor penetrating. Dracula should be staked, not fawned over like a dark, mysterious hottie with—

"Shut up!" she reprimanded herself. "No more thinking about anything but your boyfriend, Riley, who is was cuter than the vampire with amazing hair and eyes and everything and…no! I am so not having this conversation with myself!"

"You okay?" inquired Echo, appearing from no where.

"Geez!" Buffy gasped. "You need a cat bell more than Angel did."

Echo shook off the comment as usual. "Yeah…why are you talking to yourself about Dracula? He's really not that…hot. You said hot, right?"

"Not a good time. Besides we need to go to Giles'. I need to kill Dracula and get it over with." Buffy said impatiently. She pressed a hand to her neck. "But I need something…" she grabbed the first scarf she saw and wrapped it around her neck and the two bite marks. "Remember, not a word to ANYONE!"

Echo nodded. "Of course."

Buffy was almost afraid to go into Giles' house. He would just look at her, or Riley would, and they would know something was wrong. That, or Echo would tell them, "Oh, there was a pale, funny-looking guy in Buffy's room."

Of course she had to go in, and as soon as she was Buffy made herself as scarce as possible. Giles was mentioning ways to kill Dracula.

"And he can be killed like any other ordinary vampire, so it should be easy." He concluded, looking at Buffy.

"Oh...yeah. Stake. Yay." She responded in a monotone voice.

"He has mind control, though." Giles said. "He keeps his victims in a sort of…well, a thrall or trance, and he always likes his victims to have an intimate sort of relationship with him before he kills them. More like a connection."

"So, seduce and then it's dinner time?" asked Buffy vaguely.

"Well, we are talking about the dark master." Xander said in a strange, high voice. When he realized everyone was looking at him he added, "Or so I've heard they call him that…really should be dark evil guy. Weird, dark, evil guy." He looked down at his shoes. "Yeah."

"Mmmm-hmmm." Buffy was faintly aware of Riley giving her a concerned look.

"Buffy?" he ventured slowly, approaching the couch. "You okay?"

She slid down further and fingered her neck, Oddly enough, Echo still hadn't said a thing. "Yeah..yeah, I'm fine. Are you?"

"Not sure." said Riley. He watched as she unconsciously rubbed her neck where she had been bitten. "Wait…take off your scarf."

"What? No." she dropped her hand. "Why?"

"If you're not hiding anything, just take it off." He instructed more firmly. Echo's eyes strayed to Buffy's, matching the panicked look. Why did Echo care what happened?

"Riley, don't be ridiculous." said Buffy. She stood and trained her eyes on the door. "Look, shouldn't I go do some recon or something?"

"Well, you could—" Giles began, but before he was halfway done speaking Buffy was out the door.

Instead of leaving she sat down on the edge of a decorative stone wall. Buffy ran her hands through her hair. This couldn't get any worse, not with Riley acting all suspicious. Granted, he had a reason, but she was sure he wasn't just suspicious, but that he knew. For all she knew Echo was in there telling everyone what had happened.

The door banged open and Riley strode over. He ripped off her scarf with a swift motion and then stood and glared at the two distinct bite marks. Behind Giles and Xander looked on. Echo's head appeared from behind the door.

Riley threw down the scarf in frustration. "I knew it." He wasn't glaring any more, just looking at her like she had just kicked a puppy in front of him. "He was with you, or in your room, or—"

"In my room." She confirmed. "I know it's bad, and I'm s-sorry I tried to hide it…but I just thought I had too." She blinked at him with teary eyes. "Riley, I'm really sorry. I think he used the whole 'thrall' thing on me."

"Yes, the mind control." Giles agreed. "He is forging a connection with you so he can kill you."

"Can we go kill _him_ now?" Riley asked, shifting from upset back to angry.

Giles nodded. "Yes, we can find wherever he is, and we might have a chance, seeing as it's still daylight. Buffy, you should stay with someone so Dracula doesn't get to you again." as Echo shuffled out, he added, "And you too, Echo."

"She's not under any thrall." Buffy said. "She thinks he's ugly."

"But bad things could happen," said Xander, twitchily hopping from one foot to another. "Maybe Buffy and Echo can stay at my place."

"I'll go too." said Riley. "Well, unless you need help kicking Dracula's sorry butt, Giles."

Giles shook his head. "I'll need to research the gypsy magic he uses more extensively first, but I'll call you as soon as I'm done and have determined where he might be."

"Then we're off to Xander's."

**O.o.O.o.O**

Echo wasn't sure about a lot of things, but she was sure that Xander's "home" in his parents' basement was uncomfortable and damp and smelly. They had been there for at least three hours, and all they did was sit. Buffy was sitting over in a corner with Xander, and Riley was a few feet away on the couch, still upset by the Dracula thing. Echo rose from her perch on a coffee table and walked over to Buffy, kneeling in front of her and curiously peering at her face.

"What do you want now?" Buffy asked.

"Well…" Echo started, her vision blurring. "Last time I looked at your face I saw—"

…_It was like last time, with Echo seeing herself as Faith but not being her. Faith was pinned to wall by a bunch of vamps in armor, and Buffy was being drowned headfirst in sewer water._

"_Buffy!" Faith screamed, then swore and fought harder against the three vamps holding her. "Buffy!"_

_At that moment the blonde Slayer's flailing legs went limp, and Faith choked out a strangled cry and one of the vamps grabbed her by the throat. The vamp holding Buffy backed away, grinning._

_The water exploded, and Buffy surfaced, spluttering and coughing. "I hate when they drown me." She grumbled, kicking the vampire that had held her down. In a matter of minutes she and Faith had dusted every single vampire. Faith turned to Buffy, face alight._

"_Tell me you didn't get a rush outta that." She said, confident she was right._

"_Well," Buffy said, "It didn't suck."_

_Faith laughed, looping her arm through Buffy's the two headed out of the sewer and out of sight…_

"Echo? Hello?" Buffy was waving a hand in front of Echo's face. "You see what?"

"You...and Faith." Echo explained.

Buffy groaned. "Not this again."

"No, really." Echo insisted as Riley got up to see what was going on. "There were sewers, and a vampire drowned you, but not really, and then Faith asked you if you didn't get a rush from Slaying. You know, after you Slayed the vampires. And then you said it didn't suck, and the two of you left."

"That is creepy." Buffy said. "And it proves my theory that you are Faith and you either know it or you have major head trauma."

Xander, shrugged. "Who cares? I mean, does it matter?" Echo wondered what had him all twitchy. He looked like he had way too much caffeine in his system. "Sun's down.' He added, giving Buffy a meaningful look.

Five seconds later Riley was locked in the closet and Echo was down on the ground, everything fading to black from a hit to the head. It had to have been Xander.

"I'm supposed to take you to Dracula." she heard Xander say.

"Okay." Two pairs of feet shuffled off and a door slammed shut. Echo blacked out two seconds later.

… "_Shall I go now?" Echo asked, shivering. It was much clearer than the docks and the girl. She was Echo, or someone. It wasn't a garbled version of what she thought, mixed up with emotions. This was like seeing Faith, but actually being _there_, being herself._

"_Taffy?" a man asked, approaching her. Another man was leaning against a box, bleeding from what looked like a stab wound._

"_I think we broke her." The stabbed man said ruefully._

_More and more talking, but they wouldn't listen…no, they wouldn't tell her what she needed to hear. "Shall I go now?" she repeated, all her memories fading away. No more Buffy, no more Dawn, no one there… "Shall I go now?"…_

_Now she was next to the stabbed man. She liked looking at the pretty painting of the mountain, but he was talking. She had to listen._

"_We're probably going to get caught." he told her. "The cops and guards are going to come in here with guns, and when they do you need to put your hands up, okay? Put 'em up in the air, above your head."_

"_Like this?" Echo stretched her arms way over her head._

"_Yeah. That way they won't shoot you. You'll probably get taken to jail."_

"_What's jail?" the word sounded...small. Small and gray, like the mountains. Echo like the mountains._

"_It's were there's barely any air, and barely any sunlight. There aren't any trees or mountains." He said. 'it's like being trapped in, caged in, an animal."…_

_Now she was holding a baby in her arm, grinning as she handed him to the brand new father. "See?" she said. "Shoulders like a linebacker, just like I said."_

_The father smiled and accepted the precious bundle from her arms. "I can't thank you enough—"_

"_It's my job." she assured him._

_Things started to swirl faster and faster and faster until there were just images flashing on her eyelids, blurring with a sickening speed._

_There was a woman, Susan, scared of a man that had abused her but somehow she could cope now…talking to a little girl… "You let me get close…I know you have a knife on you somewhere…" ….older, Margaret, memories of a real life that had ended through what she suspected was murder…running with her son away from the horses' stable…a spy, sliding over a table as Laurence Dominic shot at her because she found him out…herself, but more aware, with an intense need to escape…walking out of the Dollhouse, out to freedom, until she collapsed…a flighty, free spirited girl drawn to a college campus and reliving something that was never hers… "Leo! Please, Leo, I need you!"…dead, gone, cold…someone's wife, hand over her mouth as she stared at the house he had bought for just the two of them…but he was sad because she never really made it, she died in a car crash…Esther, blind but able to travel across the country..regaining her sight…saved by a man she never actually knew, but trusted with her life…Taffy again, professional thief, cracking a safe…confused, alone, Echo….the midwife…Jordan, dangling a famous singer from a catwalk to show her she needed to live…singing on stage, stomach swooping…Jenny, running and panting, hiding from her date…he needed to kill….the man she trusted was shot and she couldn't help…back further, they were in a boat gliding down a river…Eleanor, hugging Devina's body close to her… "You're gonna be okay…"…negotiations…they would do things her way…a random person's date, on a motorcycle, but she fell off and the motorcycle fell on top of her… "Something heavy fell on me…" …._

_Everything was blurring and speeding up. Images of a woman named Caroline flashed by. She had almost found out the Dollhouse and they would only give her one choice; joining them…she had a few friends, Bennett, and Leo, and a lot of other people, but then Leo had died and left her all alone…at first the images slowed…there were more flashes of other people until it stopped at one._

_Faith Lehane, sitting at a table and talking to a man. Being promised she would be let go, given her memories back. Then she left and then left the Dollhouse by accident while imprinted and never came back. They had her memories, but they never were going to give them back!_

Echo started violently as someone shook her by the shoulders. "What?"

Giles was giving her a puzzled look. "I came over here and found you and Riley here, Riley was locked in the closet."

"Oh…Xander shoved him in, I think…" she was caught up in a torrent of indefinable emotions, the aftershock of her dream. There was so much fear and hurt and pain and loss, all of it coming from each of the people. Fear of men, weapons, being hunted like an animal, not being able to breathe, not knowing who she was, and not being able to help…but the worst was fear of never being forgiven. Echo started to shake so hard her leg drummed against the floor, but Giles was already up and talking to Riley.

"We'll have to track down wherever they went," said Riley. "Probably a mansion or something like you mentioned. Coming, Echo?"

The two men looked down at her expectantly, and then frowned as she clutched the carpet and gasped.

"I…can't…can't, too much, too afraid…" she breathed softly, steadying herself. She couldn't go crazy on them; it just wasn't the time for that. "I saw a lot of things that I can't understand, and I'm feeling a lot of things too. Bad things."

"What?" Riley asked. "You mean you did that weird thing like when you look at Buffy?"

"The weird thing?" questioned Giles.

"Yeah." said Riley. "She said she saw stuff about Faith when she looked at Buffy."

"And now I feel it." Echo said, getting shakily to her feet. "But I think I can walk." She realized Giles and Riley where a little more than preoccupied.

"Good, you can fill us in on what you saw later." said Giles. "We have to find Buffy first."

They trekked around the town as the sun set, when suddenly they stumbled upon an eerie mansion.

"Was that there before?" Riley asked, staring at the ominous darkness that shrouded the place.

"No."

Once they were inside Echo got distracted by the ornately carved armor lining the walls, and eventually she looked back and Riley and Giles weren't there. Ahead of her a door was open slightly, and voices drifted from inside. Echo could have sworn she heard Buffy's voice.

Creeping closer, she peered inside and saw Buffy just standing there as Dracula slowly approached. He was talking, telling her about how he could make her immortal. This was exactly like when he had been in Buffy's room, except that Dracula didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon. Echo trembled, wondering what she could do. She could barely stand there as it was, with all the unknown feelings swirling in her head and tripling her fear. She could barely remember the dream now, just the swirling emotions. She couldn't even remember why it had been important to remember, except that she had known for a second who she really was. Of course, there was a more imminent problem at hand.

"Uhhh….I could…I could….stake him?' she mumbled to herself. It was impossible, though; she was too terrified of Dracula to move.

Back in the room Dracula was offering his cut wrist to Buffy, saying something about her drinking his blood, then him drinking hers again. As far as Echo could tell, if Buffy was close to death she'd be turned into a vampire. Echo giggled. A vampire Slayer turned into a vampire? Ironic. But, she realized, also very bad. Especially since Buffy was obeying his every word, pressing her mouth to his wrist. Echo reflexively gagged.

Suddenly Buffy's head jerked up, and her eyes went from glazed over to focused. She shoved Dracula away and began to fight him as Riley, Giles, and Xander appeared behind Echo.

"This is bad." Xander mumbled. Riley appeared to be holding him back, and Giles was in the process of straightening his clothes.

"You get lost?" Giles asked casually as he finished smoothing the now imaginary wrinkles from his jacket.

"Yes." Echo said. "I'm lost, and I lost a lot of my dream, too."

He didn't pay attention. "Yes, of course…right then."

A minute or so and Dracula was staked. The odd look in Xander's eyes disappeared. "Where is he? Where's the guy that turned me into a spider-eating slave?"

Buffy pointed to dust on the floor. "He's gone."

"That's it! You know what? I'm sick of this crap! I'm sick of being the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis. As of this moment, it's over. I'm finished being everybody's butt-monkey!" Xander huffed, clearly upset.

"Check." said Buffy, stifling a giggle. "No more butt-monkey."

They started to head out, but Echo noticed Buffy hung back. Swirling from smoke, Dracula rematerialized. With a swift movement she staked him again."You think I don't watch your movies? You always come back."

For a second there was nothing, but mist began to form around her feet again. "I'm standing right here!" said Buffy, trying not to laugh. The mist quickly dissipated.

Echo grinned as she turned and followed Giles, Riley, and Xander. This day—or night—was looking just a little better.

**O.o.O.o.O**

It was the next day, and Buffy had just returned home. Giles had agreed to be her Watcher again, so she could learn how to become stronger and more powerful than before. Dracula had really gotten her thinking about where her power came from, and what she used it for.

Heading upstairs, she went in her room only to find Dawn there. "What are you doing here?" she asked, and for a second she felt like something was completely wrong. Then it was normal.

Dawn looked up but didn't reply.

From her room, her Mom called, "Buffy, if you're going out, take your sister."

Two voices rose in unison, both protestant. "Mom!"

**A/N: Whew, I'm grateful I FINALLY finished this chapter. I'm expecting each one to be about his long, covering an entire episode with Echo included. What did you think? I'm seriously considering writing this all the way to season 7, but obviously faith will get her memories back at some point…or will she? Muahaha. I love tormenting people :)**


	3. Real Me

**A/N: here's the next installment of "Lonely Ghosts", I really hope you enjoy it :) by the way, school starts on the 30****th**** for me, so just keep in mind I won't update as often, except on weekends and during holidays. Luckily school isn't quite here yet. However I am sorry this has taken so long even without school, I've been really busy.**

**Also, for those who might think that Echo's a little too developed, personality-wise (I'm one of them), my theory is that she's been exposed to enough making her way to Sunnydale and she's had flashes from her other personalities so she's just developed a semi-personality very quickly.**

**Finally, I apologize for the extreme shortness of this chapter, mostly because the next one is going to be extremely lengthy and have a complex plot and at least twenty of Echo's imprints included. That means it'll take me FOREVER and I want to get something posted so people, don't give up hope on this story. PLEASE? Oh, a review would be nice, too :)**

Echo was exploring. As a rule Buffy's house just wasn't that big, but she'd only been to the guest bedroom, the hallway, the kitchen, and the living room. She peered into Buffy's room, where the blonde Slayer had left an untidy, unmade bed. She had to be showering. In the next room Echo's face burst into a smile when she saw Dawn, cross-legged on the bed, writing in her diary. "Dawn! Hi!"

Dawn looked up in surprise. "Oh, hi."

"What are you doing?"

"Writing." Dawn gestured vaguely with her pen. "About Slayer stuff, mostly. You wanna come in?" the last part was added as Echo continued to politely hang outside the teen's bedroom door.

"Slayer stuff?" Echo asked, gingerly taking a seat on the corner of Dawn's bed. "But you're not the Slayer."

Dawn laughed. "No, like how it messes up my life. Buffy totally freaked yesterday just because I accidentally made her fall while she was training. It's not like it's a big deal, right? She has Slayer healing, she'll be fine. Didn't even have a bruise."

"Oh." Echo scooted over a little so she wouldn't fall. "I thought diaries are for secrets."

"They are." Dawn said in a conspiratorial whisper. "Sometimes I write secrets."

"That's nice." said Echo. She stared blankly at the page Dawn was on. "I can't read very much. Just from what I see in my dreams…"

"You can't read?" Dawn was incensed. "Right now I'm writing about Xander."

"You like him." It was more of a statement than a question. Over the past few days Echo had learned that kissing meant people liked each other. That mostly came from her flashbacks, most of which she couldn't remember at all. Only the raw emotions were left, bubbling up at unexpected times and threatening to overwhelm her.

"Yeah." said Dawn. "That's my secret, so what's yours?"

"What?"

"Sometimes girls that are friends or could become friends share secrets." Dawn explained. "Well, at my school, anyway. You don't have to…I was just wondering."

Echo shook her head. "I want to be your friend, but I don't have any secrets, not really."

"What about the things you see?"

"Oh, those? I can't remember much." Echo said, but she had Dawn's full attention anyway. "I think they're of people I was, or something. There's a lot in this place, the Dollhouse, where there's Alpha and Sierra and Victor…but I don't remember much."

"What do you remember?" Dawn prompted, eager for something more interesting than verbally abusing her sister in her diary. "Have you ever been kissed?"

"A lot." Echo said. She gave Dawn a bewildered look when the teen's face lit up. "What?"

"Number one girl talk topic: being kissed by guys. Cute guys." Dawn explained.

Echo said, "Oh. Well, this one time at the Dollhouse Alpha kissed me ands told me I was special, but I knew it wasn't true because Whiskey was obviously number one. I mean, she was so nice."

"What?" Dawn's forehead wrinkled as she frowned. "Number one at what?"

"I don't know. And then one day she was gone, and Alpha was gone, and there was red all over me and I was naked and my friends were red and wouldn't wake up."

A look of horror pervaded Dawn's face. "They died?"

"I…I think that's what they call it." Echo said, lost in her own memories. "And there was other stuff I did with guys that…I can't explain, really."

"Stuff involving nakedness?" Dawn guessed.

"Sometimes."

"I don't want to know." said Dawn. She closed her diary and slid it between the bed's frame and the mattress. "So…you just remember a bunch of stuff that you didn't do?"

Echo shook her head. "I think I did all of it, but it's like some of the people are real and some aren't. Caroline is pretty real…Faith is the most real, and all of you think I'm Faith." She tilted her head. "But I don't know if I want to be Faith again. She doesn't have any friends, and she knows she'll never be forgiven for anything she's done. I don't want to be her, or Caroline, or any of the others."

"Huh." Dawn said. "Well, as interesting and twisted as that is, I vote we go down to breakfast. Then you'll probably be stuck with Buffy all day."

Echo willingly followed Dawn downstairs. She couldn't help but wonder why Dawn was so sparkly and translucent, but she accepted it like it was a normal part of life. After all, everyone said Echo was crazy, and she believed it.

Echo sat, silently observing as Dawn managed to steal her sister's bowl of cereal and use up the last of the milk, earning a poisonous glare from Buffy. Buffy and Dawn didn't seem to get along too well. They were arguing about who had to take Dawn shopping for school, and Echo followed them out of the kitchen in time to hear something about the Magic Box.

"Why do I need to go there? It's not like I'm going to school at Hogwarts." Dawn said, laughing at something no one else understood. When she got three confused looks, she said, "Geez, crack a book."

Joyce was about to say something when the doorbell rang and she went to answer. Riley was standing there. "Goodmorning, Mrs. Summers. You look great."

"Oh, thank you, Riley." She said, choosing to head back to the kitchen.

Face lit up with a thousand-watt smile, Buffy was hugging him in a second. "Suck-up."

"What? It was a nice outfit. Besides, 'I'm here to violate your firstborn' never goes over well with parents." When he leaned to kiss her Echo giggled softly at the faces Dawn was making.

Riley seemed to notice Dawn after he came unglued from Buffy. "Hey, kid."

"I'm not a kid." Dawn sighed. "Come on, Echo."

Back in Dawn's room she groaned and theatrically flopped onto her bed. "He's soooo annoying. I'll bet he and Buffy have slept together."

Echo was confused. "I thought only married people shared a single bed."

"No, I meant…nevermind." said Dawn. "Tell me more about the things you remember. Maybe I can help you figure out who you are."

"Can I ask you a question?"

Dawn shrugged. "I guess."

"I know that I'm not really sane. I see things, and one of them is…well, you." Echo said. She wasn't sure how she could tell Dawn what she saw without scaring her. "You're…you're all green, and sparkly. It's like this energy is trapped inside you, tons and tons, all swirling around, and it's like you're not supposed to be here. Does that make sense?"

Dawn looked like she wanted to bolt, but didn't. "No, not really. You probably shouldn't tell Buffy things like that, she might send you somewhere bad, like an asylum."

"Is that like jail?"

"Yeah."

"There's no air in jail…there's no trees, no mountains." Echo mumbled, remembered one of her dream flashbacks. "Raise 'em above your head, in the air."

"Raise what?" asked Dawn.

Echo mimed the action with her hands. "This man, in a dark room with lots of art. He called me Taffy, and he said when the police came to raise my hands way up in the air so I wouldn't get shot. He didn't want me to get shot."

"Ooohhh…you were a thief?"

"Taffy was." Echo corrected. "She was helping them steal some statue or something…but I'm not a thief. And I don't think that Taffy went to jail." She could only remember the faint outline of a man through the smoke, the same man she would always trust with her life. "I think someone saved her. I'd trust him with my life."

Dawn seemed interested at the mention of the mysterious man. "Really? Oh, I bet you dated him! Or…or you were having a secret affair with him when you were all those different people!"

"No. I don't know his name, and when I was all those people he came to save me, but that's all. He always came to save me."

"Weird."

They sat, listening to the hum of Buffy and Riley's voices. Echo wondered if the man would come here to save her. Was she even in danger? Buffy didn't like her at all, but she didn't seem like she was a violent person, so Echo could only assume she was safe.

From below they heard Riley shout, "See ya, kid!"

Dawn shared an eye-roll with Echo. "I'm _not_ a kid!"

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Dawn groaned as Giles told her to leave the radio alone for the hundredth time. How could she just sit and be quiet when he kept playing that horrible classical music? Echo was the only one in the car not talking or moving. She was staring out at the houses they passed with glassy eyes.

It was like she had been writing in her journal; Giles just didn't know how to deal with anyone younger than sixteen, and even then he had issues with people. He was just so stuffy and British and _old_. He had to be like eighty, tops. Dawn knew he'd only been able to put up with Buffy because she's had the maturity of a thirty-year-old when she was sixteen. Probably why she wasn't any fun.

"You know, as your new Watcher, you ought to show me a little respect." Giles was reprimanding Buffy after she'd made some joke about something.

"Do I hafta?" Buffy teased. She could get away with anything.

"What are you thinking about?" Dawn asked Echo softly, trying to ignore Giles and Buffy without getting their attention by talking.

"A man. He had a house like those." Echo explained. She always seemed so far away and sad. At first she'd been a little detached, but now she acted like she had actual emotions. Of course, sometimes she acted like she was an innocent four-year-old, completely void of any knowledge or sadness. Maybe she was bipolar…

Dawn didn't remember much about Faith. One day she was there, Slaying alongside Buffy, and like all Slaying matters, Dawn wasn't included. Sometimes Faith would tag along home with Buffy for food or a place to stay. She didn't even notice Dawn, excepting the few times she'd asked for money or for Dawn to move off the couch.

The night Buffy had come home after exposing Faith as a liar she had collapsed on the stairs and cried herself to sleep.

_It was around three on the morning when Dawn woke up, unable to sleep. Buffy still wasn't home._

_She crept out to the hallway on tip toes planning on getting a snack when she heard a soft, muffled noise coming from the stairs. Dawn instantly grabbed the closest thing—a wooden statue of an elephant—from a decorative table in the hall and made her way to the top of the stairs. She was so sure it would be Faith, lying in wait to do something horrible to her and Mom._

_Instead Buffy was stretched out on the stairs, halfway up. She had her legs curled to her chest, and dawn her sobs, the sound muffled by her jacket. "Buffy?"_

_Buffy nodded her head a little._

"_Buffy, are you okay? Was it Faith? Did she fall for your trap?"_

_Two more nods, followed by a strangled cry of frustration. "She….Angel…..kissed! W-What if she's b-b-better than m-me?"_

"_Oh, Buffy…don't say that."Dawn sat and slid down the remaining stairs between herself and her sister. "Don't ever, ever say that. Angel loves you, and only you."_

_That's where Mom found them in the morning._

Dawn couldn't believe that even after all that she somehow didn't hold a grudge against Echo. Echo wasn't the same person. She had morals, she had feelings, she cared about people she barely knew. Sure there was the whole "crazy" issue, but Echo was a good person. Dawn couldn't be mad at her, especially when everyone else kept shunning her like she'd contracted some disease. Tara was the only other person that didn't hate her.

There was time to brood later, Dawn decided. She had just spotted Tara.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Echo stood quietly while Dawn, Tara and Willow chatted happily about magic, and Buffy soon joined in with news about her new training schedule. They all headed inside the Magic Box.

"I don't like this." Echo declared as soon as they walked in. It was dark and quiet, but it was like almost every person in her head that had been through bad things went to a room like this. It was always bad in the dark.

Tara called the shopkeeper's name and ventured further into the store, looking around. She tripped over something Echo could barely make out.

"I think I found him." Tara managed from the ground.

_Oh no…_ "Is he okay?" Dawn asked, fighting against Buffy to see what had happened. "Is he dead?"

"Dawn, out! You too, Echo!" Buffy said. She grabbed their arms and pulled them out. Echo wasn't too bothered by it, she didn't want to see any more dead bodies than the ones already in her head.

Dawn, however, was furious. "You're _hurting_ me!" she whined, jerking her arm out of Buffy's grip.

"Stay here." Buffy commanded, ignoring Dawn. Without a backward look she headed back into the Magic Box and slammed the door shut.

Dawn paced with frustration, attempting to look in the windows. "It's not fair!" she complained loudly to Echo. "I'm not a baby, but they all act like I am!"

Before she could say anything else a dirty man that looked like he lived in the streets came up to her. "Whatcha doin'?" he asked, stalking towards her in a threatening manner. Echo shivered. What could she do? Scream? "What're you doing here? Can't loiter. There's no loitering. That's why I'm a cat…quiet. See, cat's are quiet, but they find you there anyway, and hurt." He whimpered. "Please make it stop!"

"Buffy—" Dawn choked out, but the man shushed her. Echo took a wary step forward. If she could only remember how to help…Taffy would know how, or Eleanor, but she couldn't quite remember.

"I know you…" the man was saying. "Curds and whey. I know what you are. You don't belong here."

A tiny squeak escaped dawn's lips. Echo was about to just go for it and tackle the guy when he turned his head like he'd heard something and tiptoed his way across the street. "Dawn, are you okay?"

"He said I wasn't real…like you said, except different. You said I looked funny." Dawn said. "Is he right?"

"He's crazy." Echo said. "That doesn't mean he's right. I'm crazy too, remember?"

Dawn giggled. "Yeah. Kinda funny hearing you say that, though."

"I know." Echo surveyed the area. "Why don't we go sit down?"

"Okay."

That's where Tara found them, five minutes later, sitting on the curb and talking about boys. "Hey, guys."

"Tara!" Echo said. "What happened?"

"The owner's dead." She said quickly. "Buffy and the others are the dong whatever they do, I thought that it'd be better if us non-Scoobies stayed out of it. What are you doing?"

"Talking about kissing boys." said Dawn. She gestured happily at Echo. "She's kissed a lot of guys!"

Echo didn't know why Tara looked so amused. "That's nice."

"I kissed girls before, too." Echo added. "There was this one…she looked like Dr. Saunders. So did Whiskey."

"That's one thing I don't get." said Dawn. "What is with those names?"

"What names? You mean like Victor, Sierra, November, Whiskey, Alpha, and Tango?"

Dawn nodded. "Do all the….the dolls have funny names?"

"I don't know." Echo said honestly. "I can't remember more than the names and faces. I don't think they told me anything anyway, and I wouldn't understand it if they did."

"Whiskey." Tara mused. "What, was she drunk all the time? I mean, before she became like you."

"Drunk?" Echo asked. "What is that?"

"Well…" said Tara. "It starts with going to a bar and getting a ton of beer…"

**O.o.O.o.O.**

"She's just everywhere!" Buffy moaned frustration, throwing a vamp to the ground and staking him. "She's always ruining everything, or following me, and she thinks being the Slayer is like a privilege or something!"

"But it's been bothering you more lately than before." Riley said, helping her up.

"I know…I don't know why."

Riley said, "Maybe it's because of Echo."

"What?"

"Well, you've been so edgy lately, and now that Echo's here, it's worse." He said.

Buffy sighed. "I don't know if you can understand…you remember when I went to L.A.?"

"And Angel followed you back to apologize for something? Yeah, my face remembers being punched by his fist." Riley said. "Why?"

"When I went to see him, I found him hugging Faith. I found out later he was only comforting her—they were attacked by a demon and she had gotten blood on her hands—but it made me think of when…"

"When what?"

She took a deep breath. "When I was still in high school, we had a plan where Angel faked losing his soul and teamed up with Faith, exposing her as working for the Mayor. They kissed in front of me, and I couldn't do anything about it. When I saw him holding her it was so much worse, because if there was some plan I didn't know about it. Then he protected her, hit me to defend her. It just hurt me…and even when I knew she was going to end up in the jail I still didn't feel any better. I still don't." She threw her stake at the ground and watched it imbed itself in the dirt. "Now she's not even in jail, so I don't have that anymore. There's just pain and hurt and sorrow."

"Did I mention how much I hate Angel sometimes?" Riley asked, still preoccupied by what she'd said about Angel. "He hit you…"

"I hit him first." Buffy admitted. "But it still hurt."

Riley slid an arm around her waist and gave her a quick hug. "Well, I'd never do that to you. You know that, right?"

"I know." She snuggled into him. "This is nice. It's so peaceful, without Dawn making gagging noises—"

"Buffy…"

"Sorry." Stretching up on her toes she kissed him. "Ruining the moment. My bad."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Dawn was furious. She could hear Mom and Buffy in the together room, talking about how she was a kid, how she shouldn't have been at a crime scene, though she hadn't seen a single thing. "It's not fair!" she complained for the hundredth time that day.

Echo, seated on a white stool next to Dawn's bed, shrugged. "Your Mom wants to protect you. She is nice."

Dawn glared at Echo. "Why is everything always puppies and rainbows with you, anyway? I thought horrible stuff happened to you."

"It's not bad most of the time. said Echo. "Most of the time I don't feel anything."

From the other room Dawn heard something to the effect of, "Who's going to watch her now? You can't leave her alone, or leave her with Faith!"

"I don't need anyone to watch me!" Dawn shouted down the hall.

"Yes you do!" was the reply.

"What about Xander?" Dawn heard Buffy suggest. Xander! He was the only person that saw her for who she really was; a woman. She leapt of the bed and bound down the hallway, stopping at her Mom's bedroom door. "Okay."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Echo had finally decided that she was right about Dawn liking Xander. Dawn couldn't keep her eyes off him, smiling only when she wasn't glaring at Anya. They were playing some game Echo didn't understand. Anya seemed to be winning and Dawn's face was slathered in ice cream when a rock came sailing through the window. Echo shrank away from the shards of glass. Too many bad things were associated with that.

"'Slayer, come out to die'." Xander read off the paper attached to the rock.

"I'm waiting for you, Slayer!" a high, girlish voice called from outside. Xander looked out the window.

"Harmony?"

"Who's Harmony?" Echo asked Dawn.

Dawn just shrugged. "I don't really know…I think she went to high school with Buffy, but now she's a vampire or something."

"She knows a lot of vampires." Echo said.

"Used to date one."

Echo hid behind Dawn while Xander poked fun at Harmony, who, even as a vampire, Echo didn't find very intimidating.

"Shut up, Harmony!" Dawn said after Harmony said something to insult Xander. The teen's cheeks were burning bright red. "Why don't you come in here and say that to his face, he'll—"

Anya shouted, "Dawn, no!" but it was too late.

Harmony came flying through the door, her minions stupidly crashing into the invisible barrier. They hadn't been invited. She tackled Xander and punched him a few times before he threw her off, and managed to throw her out the back door. "I'll be back!"

Everyone turned and glared at Dawn. "It was an accident?" she offered hopefully.

Xander sighed. "It's not your fault, you didn't mean to."

"She can always come in now, right?" asked Echo, unsure. All she knew is that Buffy said only someone who lived in a house could invite a vampire in, which meant Echo couldn't, since she was only a guest. She didn't remember whether the invite was forever or if a vampire had to be invited in every time they came to someone's house.

"That's the idea." Xander said, nursing a purple bruise forming on his jaw. "Now she can come in and kill Buffy any time she wants. Well, she can come in and try; I don't think that it'll ever actually happen."

After a while Riley and Buffy came back, and both found the idea of Harmony having minions so amusing they laughed until they cried, but when Xander told Buffy Dawn had invited Harmony in she went storming up the stairs. Echo heard shouting, and then nothing. She decided there was nothing she could do but wait at the back door and watch for Harmony so she could yell if she saw anything.

"Dawn!"

Echo saw Dawn rush past Anya and out the door, where she stood. Echo could hear her crying. "Dawnie?" she called, using Dawn's pet name. Dawn shook her head.

Anya pushed her way past Echo and ran out, yelling at Dawn for running out. She started to drag Dawn back inside while scolding about vampires when one of Harmony's "useless" minions smashed Anya into the door and grabbed Dawn.

Echo dropped to her knees next to Anya. "Anya! Anya, wake up!"

Xander's face went pale when he saw her, running in because of the crash. "Anya!"

A flash of an image went through Echo's mind; Devina, huddled at the bottom of a fridge tipped on its side. That wasn't going to happen to Dawn. Knowing that she was completely helpless, Echo sprinted out the door as Buffy and Riley ran into the kitchen and saw Anya.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

"Dawn…they got Dawn." Anya mumbled before her eyes closed again.

Buffy's heart sped up and she grabbed Riley's hand. He squeezed her fingers. "You'll find her. It had to be Harmony, she can't be far, right?"

"Right. Where's Echo?"

"Must've taken her too."

"Perfect." Buffy said, taking a crossbow off the counter. "Now I have to save both of them. This wouldn't have happened if Echo was Faith."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Echo was running down the street at full speed, the vampires ahead of her. She had just barely managed to find them, and she wondered why they weren't using the sewers to get wherever they were going.

She went through what she could remember from the other people she used to be; there was some fighting, and ways to get back kidnapped people, but there wasn't really enough to go on.

_Taffy slid down the length of the safe, listening for the audible clicks when it became unlocked. Even then she was still listening to the men behind her, smirking as she had at least three different counter attacks planned should any of them think of jumping her. Smiling, she swayed her hips a little, hoping it drove them crazy. _Knowing _it drove them crazy._

Echo tried to go over the attack moved in her head as she panted for breath, but they faded as quickly as the memory did. What could she do?

Reaching the vampires hideout she listened to them fighting over whether or not they should kill Dawn.

_You can't fight a ghost._

Echo slid in the cave, skirting the walls and hiding behind a couch.

"_The dollhouse deals in fantasy. That is their business, but that is not their purpose." She had to get Paul out of the picture. She was highly trained in ways of killing people, but this required something trickier. He had to live, but he had to lose his gun._

_She grinned as a cop rounded the corner. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard._

Now she could remember ways to fight. "Let her go!" Echo commanded, making herself visible to the vampires. Harmony had just disappeared around the corner. "Where's Dawn?"

For a second the vampires didn't reply, but one wrinkled his nose. "A Slayer…but you're not the Slayer! You're not Buffy!"

"The Dark Slayer." Another hissed, nearing her, making her already labored breathing speed up. "I read about her. She's supposed to be in jail."

"Should we kill her?"

There wasn't an answer, because Echo threw herself at the first one and hoped for the best.

After a few bad punches and a few hits to the head Echo could feel her body sliding into another persona. She was spy, with one mission and one mission only; stop Paul from finding out more about the Dollhouse. But the other half of her was Echo, confused and scared. All she wanted was to save Dawn. Or was that Eleanor? She couldn't even tell anymore.

"Echo!" that was Buffy. Trapped in a headlock, Echo tried to wave her hand where Harmony had gone.

"That way!" she choked out, then firmly grabbed the vampire's shirt and flipped him over, onto the ground. "Dawn's in there with Harmony!"

Buffy was off in a second, and moments later Harmony fled from the room. When they saw their leader leaving the other vamps fled. Echo fell to the floor and coughed, her throat sore. _Dawn_. Some part of her—it had to be Eleanor—was screaming to know that Dawn was okay.

She stuimbled through the doorway and saw Buffy helping Dawn free her wrists of chains. "Dawn!"

"Echo?"

"She was fighting when I got here, I thought she got captured." Buffy explained.

Echo found herself running to Dawn and enveloping her in a tight hug. "I'm glad you're okay…or Eleanor is. I'm not sure.

_Eleanor was hugging Devina close to her body, tears tracking down her face. "You're okay, you're okay, you're gonna be okay now…" she murmured into the girl's hair. "He can't hurt you anymore."_

Echo finally stepped away when Dawn squeaked and said something about not being able to breathe. "I wasn't captured. I followed you because I didn't want you to get hurt."

"You said something about…uh…Eleanor?" Dawn asked, perplexed. "Do I know her?"

"I was Eleanor." said Echo. She smiled and took Dawn's hand. "I'll tell you about her later, okay?"

Dawn grinned. "Okay."

The three of them headed out into the night. As they walked in silence, Echo felt another mindset sliding into place like it belonged in her body. She caught up to Buffy, a little ahead of her and Dawn. "Glad I could help, B."

"What?" Buffy spun, arms held up defensively. "Faith?"

Just like it had come, suddenly Echo found she was normal again. "I don't know. I felt funny for a minute. It was like a wave."

Buffy refused to talk to Echo the rest of the way home.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy sighed for the billionth time as she came back from reminding Dawn not to touch _anything_. The last thing she needed was having to pay for something expensive and magickal. "I'm worried about her." She told Giles, who was setting up the punching bag she had accidentally knocked over. "She's way too friendly with Echo."

"Echo has a very charming, childlike personality." Giles said, earning a disapproving glare from Buffy. "It's not surprising that Dawn is becoming friendlier with her."

"And why is Echo friends with her?"

"Maternal instinct." Giles said. "She mentioned being someone, someone named Eleanor?"

Buffy nodded. "She said she saved a little girl named Devina from someone called 'the ghost' or something."

"She merely feels protective of Dawn because she's seen another girl get caught and scared by bad men." said Giles.

Buffy hit the punching bag several times. "I don't like it. She fought too well."

"We can look into that later. For now…try to stop dropping your left shoulder, I thought you had stopped doing that a long time ago."

Buffy wondered if she should bring up the moment when Echo had seemed like she was Faith again, but decided against it. Maybe Echo was just messing with her.

Maybe.

**O.o.O.o.O**

In the Dollhouse Topher was staring at a screen, displaying a bleeping dot and a picture of Echo. "Bingo."

"You found her?" Ivy asked, bringing a juice box over to him.

He nodded, pointing at the dot. "Right in the middle of Sunnydale, CA. Right where there are cheap, cheap houses and a high, high mortality rate. A doll wandering amongst muggers and robbers and who knows what else."

"Lions and tigers and bears, oh my." Ivy responded sarcastically. "You gong to send someone there?"

He handed her a phone, the number already entered in it. "See that name?"

"Boyd?"

"Her Handler. Let's hope he can find her in time."

Ivy looked puzzled. "How come you can see her on the map now?"

"Something must've jarred her when she went off the system and deactivated her tracking device, maybe she got attacked by a mugger and the same thing happened again, but in reverse." He held the phone to his ear. "Hello? Boyd, good to here your voice again…yes, that was sarcasm. I've found Echo. Sunnydale. Some house on Revello drive, I don't have an exact address." A pause. "Good luck."

**A/N: This is a really sucky chapter. Next to come, Echo gets hit with the thingy that split Xander in two…but will it rip her apart into twenty people? Will Boyd completely lose his mind when he runs into Taffy, Susan, Alice, Eleanor, Jordan, and countless others? Yes, and yes…though you won't see the next chapter for a while. For now enjoy my randomly inspired oneshots that I will post from time to time.**

**Finally (I'm almost done ranting, I swear!), thanks to ****Smalville-HarryPotterfan13 for the first review I ever got on this story! To answer your questions: I don't know when Faith will get her memories back, if she ever does. She might just remember everything, like on Dollhouse in season 2, but stay as Echo, with memories of being Faith helping her to fight.  
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	4. The Replacement Part 1

**Disclaimer: If you think I own BTVS or Dollhouse…you are insane. Go see a therapist.**

**A/N: This is a very extreme twist on the episode "The Replacement", but no worries: Xander will still get his apartment and job :) also, depending on what I think could work, Kiki Turner might be in this even thought I know she's not imprinted on Echo until season 2, which doesn't exist in this fic….not yet, anyway…I just love Kiki, so she might be here.**

Smalville-HarryPotterfan13: I liked your Caroline and Dark Slayer idea so much I decided to incorporate it into my story. Thanks for the idea! 'Course, Faith's not really "dark" anymore, because she went to jail and felt bad for all the things she did, but…meh. I'm not sure how Echo will play into all of this yet…meaning completely blank Echo, of course, without her flashbacks and emotions.

Ltlconf: Thank you for the amazingly lengthy review, it's like the first insightful one I've ever gotten in my career as a fanfiction writer :) I don't mind ranting, either, I do a lot of it myself. Anyway, I get what you're saying, and to make my answer short; the idea is they haven't really figured out what happened to Faith because they're busy with other stuff (Dawn…well, soon it'll be Dawn, and Glory, and demons in general. Like you said, they weren't very accepting of Faith, so there's also how they aren't very willing to have her change back. I definitely am going have Buffy learn to accept Faith because you were right about how she was judgmental about Faith.

Finally, this will be in two parts because of my laziness and not writing last weekend. Hopefully by next weekend I'll have part 2 finished.

Buffy was studying a textbook on the crusades intensely as she, Riley, Anya, and Xander all watched what sounded like some sort of fighting movie. Since Anya was still recovering from being slammed into a door by one of Harmony's minions Xander had suggested they rest a while, taking it easy and watching a movie.

Xander sighed. "Wish I had something food-like to offer you guys, but the hot plate's out of commission."

"We think the cat peed on it." Anya added bluntly.

"I do have spaghetti-o's." Xander said. "Set 'em on the dryer and you're a fluff cycle away from lukewarm goodness."

"Nah, I had dryer food for lunch." said Riley.

They all heard a loud thump from above.

"Huh." said Xander. "I guess the folks are back." There was a crash and a shattering noise. "No, no, I was wrong. Just incompetent burglars." There was a louder smashing noise. "Yeah, maybe it's definitely time to start looking for a new place…somewhere a little nicer. Buffy, you've been to hell; they have warm bedrooms, right?"

The comment went right over Buffy's head, as she was too deeply engrossed in her book.

Riley leaned forward a little to peer over her shoulder. "Hey, Buffy, how's that book? A lot of zippy dates and zesty names?"

"I'm fine." she said automatically. Riley reached his hands over her shoulders and covered the pages with his hands. "Hey…I'm enjoying the studying."

"Where have you been lately? You're always studying." Riley protested. Buffy sighed. She _was_ tired of the boring textbook. "I guess it has been a long day with the crusades. I could take a little break from the violence for some…" she glanced at the TV and saw what seemed to be Chinese warriors battling it out. "…ooooh, fighting!"

"Incompetently dumb kung fu," Xander said approvingly as one of the Chinese men missed his target, "our most valuable Chinese export."

"It's more durable than their hot plates." Anya agreed.

Riley grinned and stretched out his arms casually, reaching for Buffy's shoulders. "Just relax."

Buffy moaned appreciatively as he gently massaged her muscles, tense from training and Slaying. "That feels good." She didn't even notice Xander attempting to do the same thing until she heard Anya's yelp of protest.

"Ow!" she complained. "What are you doing?" Buffy noticed Riley sheepishly withdrew his hands and looked away from Xander as casually as possible. "I have a dislocated shoulder, and I'm trying to concentrate on the kicking movie."

Buffy said, "Hey, the rubbing went away."

"Oh...sorry, I got caught up in the action." He started massaging again.

"Yeah, it's pretty good…" Buffy said, eyes trained back on the TV. "Oh, give me a break! This is all wrong. See, first you would get the big guy, like a flying kick, then you would take out all the little ones—see?" she said, gestured as one of the warriors kicked the biggest in the face, then methodically went for a smaller one like Buffy has said.

"Hey, Buffy, you ought to leave the work behind sometimes…you're not on Slayer duty all the time, you know." said Riley. Buffy felt a twinge of guilt at how lonely Riley sounded. She was just always so busy…

"Well…" she began, deciding to make it sound like she was just joking around. "It would drive you crazy if we were watching an army movie and they were all saluting backwards and invading willy-nilly."

Riley didn't respond, coughing very pointedly when another crash sounded above them.

"And anyway," continued Buffy, "you can't blame me for being critical. Willow's the same way when we watch movies about witches, right, Xander?"

Xander, still upset at accidentally hurting Anya, was slow to say something. "What? Oh, yeah..she's all 'What's that, a cauldron? No one uses those anymore.'"

Unknown to them, only a few miles away, the demon Toth was using one to forge a weapon that would help him kill the Slayer.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Echo was very, very bored.

It'd been about a week since she had gotten all weird and become a different person, and Dawn was still safe as ever. As far as Echo knew, Harmony had disappeared off the face of the earth. No one had seen her since the fight in her lair.

Right now she was tagging along as Xander, Anya, Willow, Riley, and Buffy were apartment-shopping so Xander could have a new place. Echo remembered the only time she'd been to his basement, and she didn't blame him for wanting to move out. It was so damp and dark all the time, and it smelled funny.

The woman renting the apartment was highly unimpressed with Xander, giving him disapproving looks as he shook her hand and then took the place in, fancy ceiling fans and all. Echo couldn't help but grin when she saw Buffy and Riley cast sly glances at each other and slip into the adjoining bedroom.

"Look, a microwave!" Willow exclaimed, waving her hands at the aforementioned object. "You could have food, like popcorn!"

Echo smiled. It was nice without bad things happening, though she knew that after such a long period of time without serious problems there was bound to be evil brewing. Like the evil that would happen when Xander found Buffy and Riley having a major kiss-and-grope session in the bedroom of an apartment he hadn't even bought yet.

A few minutes later exactly that happened, followed by Anya getting upset because Xander couldn't get the apartment and storming out in a huff. When they arrived at the Magic Box Giles immediately started talking about how he was attacked by some demon, so Echo went to talk to Dawn.

"What are you doing?" Echo asked, watching Dawn stack little bundles of herbs on shelves.

Dawn waved one of the bundled around vaguely. "You know, helping out and all that. You hear about the funny demon coming hear and attacking Giles?"

"He said it left, it didn't want to fight." said Echo. "I think I heard him say it was looking for Buffy."

Dawn inhaled sharply. "Of course it was." As soon as the panicked expression on her face has appeared, it vanished. "But I'm sure she'll beat it to a pulp, so there's no worries here." A fake smile plastered her face.

"Uh-huh." Echo strained her ears, listening to the still-happening conversation across the Magic Box. Riley didn't seem too happy about the whole situation. Echo knew he was just worried about Buffy because of all the things that were constantly coming after her, but it was still a little annoying. He had top realize he couldn't try to keep protecting her, seeing as he could and most like would get himself killed in the process. Echo could see it more now then when she had first met him, but Riley was one of the overly-protective types, the kind of guy Echo could remember from her memories. He instinctively tried his hardest to protect Buffy from the world when he should let her do what she had to, and it bothered him that she was stronger than him and could take care of herself. It wasn't in a bad way, Echo knew, but in the way where Riley just wanted Buffy to be safe. If she wasn't the Slayer she wouldn't be in danger. Echo wondered if he ever wished Buffy wasn't the Slayer.

"Nice face." she heard Dawn tease. "What's up with you and the quiet, brood-y looks? You're getting to be a lot like Angel, and trust me, that is _not_ a route you want to take."

"Nothing…" Echo watched as Riley went to Buffy and drew her into his arms. A smile traced Buffy's face and she tipped her head up to look at him. "Nothing at all. Just—"

"—thinking." Dawn finished. "Like always. You know, Faith never thought about anything, just did what came to mind instantly." She tipped her head quizzically. "I like this new look. The thinking look…even if it turns you into Angel."

"Thank you?"

Dawn giggled, happiness restored. "Wanna help me with the rest of this while Buffy and Riley make kissy faces at each other?"

"You bet."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Boyd Langton was exhausted after the long drive to Sunnydale, what with all the wrong turns he'd taken to actually get there. He had researched the town, and it was definitely one of those places where the unexplained happened every day. People dying of mysterious neck wounds, animal attacks reported almost daily, an outbreak of laryngitis, rumors of gangs with malformed faces; Sunnydale seemed to have it all. That and the low house mortgages due to the high mortality rate for Sunnydale residents.

He pulled over, spotting a woman walking to the end of her driveway to grab mail. "Excuse me?"

"Yes?" her face was guarded. He head heard rumors that outsiders weren't accepted well because of how many outsiders had wreaked havoc on the little town.

"I'm Boyd, I was wondering if you've seen this girl." Boyd offered her a picture of Echo. "She is probably going by the name 'Echo' and might be disoriented."

The woman's eyes widened. "That's not Echo or whoever you're looking for, that's Faith. She was wanted for murder a year or two ago, she's in jail." She shuddered. "Right?"

"No, she's not." Boyd said. Faith? That had to be her real identity; the one that the other Dollhouse had said was something they didn't need to know.

"She's not?"

"No, and she's believed to be here." said Boyd. "Do you know her last name, or people she knew while she was here?"

The woman was backing away. "Her last name was Lehane, but that's it. You should ask the police for the file they have on her or something, they keep track of people she knew." Before he could question her further she was gone, door locked behind her.

It was easy enough to find the police station, but Boyd was kept waiting for quite a while. Person after person came in with a missing person to report, or murder, or a severe accident. When he finally was allowed to speak to the sheriff she reluctantly gave him Faith's file.

The only name listed as a person that knew Faith was Buffy Summers. She happened to live on Revello Drive, exactly where Topher had said Echo was. Closing the file, careful not to drop the numerous papers inside, Boyd headed for his car.

He had to go ask a certain Buffy Summers about an old friend.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Echo screamed when she saw the demon standing behind them.

She and the Scoobies had all headed for the town's dump when Giles explained the demon smelled like trash, but she was starting to think that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea after all. The demon, or Toth, as Giles had told them it was called, was enormous, face traced with glowing green lines. Echo barely managed to jump aside when it shot at them with its staff.

"Buffy, look out!" Xander yelled as Toth aimed again and missed Buffy, hitting Xander. He flew into a pile of trash.

"Xander!" Echo ran to him when a jolt of pain surged through her body. She felt like she'd been struck by lightning.

Exactly a minute later she was being helped up by Buffy and Willow, Xander limping in their direction with Giles' and Riley's help. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Echo said. She felt funny…all the borrowed emotions that had been in her head for weeks seemed to be draining away, leaving her blissfully free of any feeling except the pain in her back. "I'm alright, thank you." It was like what being drunk sounded like. Taffy, Caroline, Faith, Eleanor…they were all fading away in a swirling mass of faces and memories.

As they headed home, Echo forgot everything except the Dollhouse, her name, and the people walking her home.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Boyd couldn't believe what he'd just seen.

He had been driving aimlessly around after finding Buffy's house empty when he'd seen Echo heading somewhere with a bunch of people. She had been smiling, laughing—something the dolls never did.

The group had gone into the junkyard and confronted something. Boyd hadn't been able to see it, but it appeared to be a tall, bulky man in a cloak that had a gun of some sort. One of Echo's friends had been hit, along with Echo. She appeared to be fine when two of the girls in the group assisted her up, but what had horrified him was the bulky man's face. As the man had made his getaway to the street Boyd had noticed his face was deformed and traced with neon green lines like someone had painted his face with acid.

Of course, the people around him HAD said Sunnydale was a strange place. Sadly, he had lost track of Echo.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

The next morning, in the dump, Xander woke up to the smell of trash, and nearby, so did Taffy. They headed separate ways, never spotting each other.

A minute later Eleanor was on her way out.

Then Jordan, Jenny, Susan, Alice, Esther, and many others made there way out, one by one.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy was happily kissing Riley (she had just slammed the doors in Dawn's face when Dawn made repeated gag noises) when the doorbell rang. "Perfect timing." She sighed sadly, detaching herself from him and putting her axe down. "I'll be back."

When she opened the door a strange man was standing there. He looked fairly well-muscled, with a neat and rather expensive looking suit.

"Hello." He said. "I'm Boyd. Are you Buffy Summers?"

"Yeah, that'd be me." Buffy said. "Why?"

"Do you know this woman?" he held up a picture of Faith, one Buffy recognized as the old police one that had been on a bunch of posters around town years ago.

"That's Faith Lehane." said Buffy.

Boyd nodded. "We have information saying that she's in this area, and we were wondering whether or not you've seen her around."

Buffy decided to keep Echo a secret for now. "Nope, sorry. Last time I saw her was a year ago, when she woke from her coma. I heard she went to L.A."

"Really?" Boyd looked unconvinced. "Because I could have sworn I saw her with you when you and a bunch of friends went into the town's dump last night."

"So you've been following me?" Buffy was liking Boyd less and less by the minute.

"I happened to see Faith, so I followed her and the people with her, you included. May I ask what you were doing at a dump that late in the night?"

"No."

They had a silent staring contest for nearly a minute before Boyd shrugged. "Well, I have to go. Please call this number—" he handed her a slip of paper "—if you feel like being helpful." With that he turned on his heel and swept off down the walkway to his car. The second he was out of sight Buffy raced back upstairs.

"Riley!"

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Boyd was beyond frustrated now. The small blonde girl, Buffy, clearly knew that Faith was back and probably was letting Faith stay at her house, but she wasn't telling. Without a warrant Boyd couldn't barge into her house and search it, not even with the Dollhouse's high clearance in most government agencies…not that other government agencies knew of them.

He finally decided on shadowing Buffy and the people he had seen her with when he saw Echo walking down the street.

"Echo!" He called, running up and grabbing her arm. "Echo? What are you doing, wandering the streets?"

"Echo?" she blinked. "I'm not Echo…I'm Alice!"

_Alice? _He remembered an imprint of Echo's named Alice. "No, you're Echo. Would you like a treatment?"

"What? NO!" Echo/Alice jerked her arm out of his grip. "What are you, some kind of perv? What's 'treatment' codeword for? A threesome?" she hurried away from him and across the street.

"She didn't want a treatment?" that was all wrong. No matter what could have happened, what persona Echo was in, she was programmed to say yes and willingly come with him. No matter what.

Five minutes later he saw her outside a coffee shop. "Echo, would you like a treatment? Or…Alice, would you like a treatment?"

She squinted at him. "My name's not Alice, it's Eleanor Penn. You can call me Miss Penn, and I would _not _like a treatment."

Then she was gone too, but before she disappeared around the corner Boyd saw another Echo, exactly like Echo/Eleanor, come out of the coffee shop. There were two of them?

"Alice?"

She kept walking, forcing him to grab her arm. Before he could fit in another word she grabbed his wrist, twisted it behind his back, and had him pressed against a brick wall. "What's your game?"

"Are you Alice?" _Stupid question. _"I mean, what's your name?"

"Taffy." She let go and vanished before he could turn to face her.

Boys stumbled to his car and picked up his phone. "Topher? It's Boyd. We may have a serious problem."

**End of Part 1**

**A/N: As you see, I've managed to post this a little late and still have time to finish the second half. I'm terribly sorry this is late, I kinda promised I would update this weekend. I'm trying not to be the kind of author that does the old "life gets in the way" thing as much as possible. Anyway, you can go read the oneshot I posted to make up for posting this late. It's called "Love 'til the end".**


	5. The Replacement Part 2

**A/N: And yes, here is the long awaited part 2 that I was too lazy and then too busy to write. Then again, I'm way too busy now, but I'm taking a break from life. A long break. Like maybe a year ;) kidding. But, yeah…I bow at your feet and hope you forgive me for my procrastination and love for the musical Chicago, which prevented me from posting this until really late at night.**

**So…yeah. No time for review replies, but they made very happy and I humbly ask for more when this is posted, they keep me writing even when I'd rather go watch Buffy or Vampire Diaries.**

**By the way, anyone interested in beta-reading this for me? For some reason I can never catch my own spelling mistakes because I hate rereading my own writing after I've written it.**

Boyd leaned against the side of his car. "Yes, Topher, I'm certain. There's two of her, maybe more…no, I _don't _know why, but I need to know. What should you do?" he kicked a pebble into the road. "I don't know, see if you can still track Echo, help me find the real one." Before Topher could get in another word Boyd hung up and shoved the phone into his pocket. It was time to pay Buffy Summers another visit.

Her home was quieter this time. He could see the brown-haired man that had been with her earlier through the window, and the sandy-haired one that kept a protective eye on her at all times. Boyd watched from across the street. She held herself so regally, like she wasn't afraid of anything. He wondered if he could take her in a fight. She was awfully small.

Finally he stepped up to the door and rang the doorbell. The same brown-haired girl answered the door. "Buffy!" she called. "It's that stalker guy in the funny looking suit again!" then with a sarcastic smile she danced away from the door and started chattering with the brown-haired man.

Buffy came to the door with cold eyes searching up and down Boyd. "What do you want this time?"

Boyd said, "I need your cooperation, or people could get seriously injured. Please, let me come inside your house. I only have a few questions."

"No."

She slammed the door in his face but Boyd wasn't even fazed this time. He made his way under one of the larger windows and strained his ears for some sort of information.

"He's onto us, that's for sure." Buffy was saying. "Riley, is there any way you can contact the Initiative and maybe see if they can dig up something on this guy? I could always have Willow do it, but she'd busy with Wicca group."

Wicca group? Boyd had heard about those crazy "Wiccans" before, they were supposed to be some sort of witch wannabes organization.

"I'm sure I can find some of them." the sandy-haired man, Riley said.

"Yeah, that's all good and happy puppies in the sunshine, but what about Echo?" the other man asked.

The younger girl sighed. "Xander…"

"What? She was completely wigging when I saw her. 'I'm not Echo, I'm Eleanor!' five minutes later it's, 'I'm Alice…hey, you're kinda cute.' Really? C'mon, Dawn, what would you think?"

Boyd almost choked.

"Well…" a series of thumps like everyone had simultaneously decided to sit. "I would think she was lesbian, for one."

Buffy said, "That's not the point. How could she have gotten to where Xander was so fast and then back home right away? After you called me, Xander, I went upstairs and she was there, sitting in the tub."

"Taking a bath?"

"No, she was just sitting there, looking around with this really stoned expression." said Buffy. "When I asked her if she'd been out she asked me why she hadn't gotten a treatment in so long."

Boyd wondered if the real Echo was the one supposedly in Buffy's house.

"A treatment?" that was Riley again. "Why does that sound so wrong?"

Xander laughed. "My thoughts exactly."

"Guys!" Buffy said in frustration. "That's not the point! She's way too out of it to have done anything you claim she did, or pretended to be…Alice, or Taffy, or all those other freaks. And we have to go find Toth before we deal with any of this."

"Right, Toth."

For a few minutes Boyd heard what sounded like metal clinking against metal, and the swish of…swords? He didn't dare lift his head to look inside the window.

"You think this is enough?"

"Should be. Let's head to Giles' before we go find him, okay?"

"Okay."

Boyd shrank behind the bushes while the troop headed to the car and drove away. As soon as they were gone his phone started ringing.

"Topher?"

"Boyd…things are really not good."

Boyd sighed. "Of course they aren't. Why aren't they?"

"Echo must have learned how to defy the laws of nature, because according to this she's currently outside a drugstore, at Revello drive, in a quaint little coffee shop just a few blocks away from a dance club where she's apparently moving around a lot as well as being at about twenty other different places."

"…she what?"

"And she can't have done anything to her tracking device, because there's no way she could duplicate it and then plant a bunch in different people. She doesn't have the resources, not if she took on one of her spy identities. No one can crack my codes, no one!"

"Topher…"

"It's just impossible! After Alpha I made sure that none of the dolls had that knowledge, so none of them could outsmart me."

"Topher…!"

Topher finished his rant. "yeah?"

"She's at Revello drive?"

"Well…one of her."

Boyd had managed to unlock the front door. "I'll see if I can get her, or the one there. Then there was a dance club?"

"Yeah." said Topher. "Or maybe a club. It's called the Bronze."

"Okay. I'll call back later."

Hanging up the pho0ne again, Boyd made his way into the house, cautiously creeping forward. There wasn't a sound. He found stairs and went up to fin Echo sitting on the floor serenely, smiling at him. "Hello."

"Echo."

As he walked toward her there was a crash and her exact twin stood in front of her. Echo's double's eyes shone with a hate not in Echo's eyes. "Boyd."

He knew that tone. Only one person hated him that much. "Caroline."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy shook her head and sighed at the two Xanders making silly jokes and references to things only guys knew and cared about, one being Star Trek. "You feeling better?" She asked Riley, coming to sit in his lap, letting him wrap his arms around her waits and hug her. It was so nice to just unwind.

"I guess. I mean, you're safe."

"Safe as one can be on a Hellmouth." Buffy agreed. Xander was bouncing up and down like a kid in a candy store, in sync with Xander. "I find this kinda creepy, you know. Especially since Anya wants to—"

"Don't say it, I'll just be sick!" said riley.

Buffy giggled. "—have a threesome with them."

"No!" he playfully clapped a hand over her mouth, soon replacing it with lips.

"Mmmmph…hey!" Buffy protested. "Cheating! Stupid cheating, cheater-head…cheaty person."

"Yeah. I'm you're 'cheater-head'." He agreed affectionately.

They observed as Willow spoke several words and then opened her eyes to a single Xander.

Anya regarded him fort a minute, a pout crossing her face. "I don't like it. Put them back."

It took some convincing before Willow assured Xander she would never do that and then the gang was off when they spotted Echo wandering the street with some guy…some guy that sent tingles up Buffy's spine. "Vampire." She said, pulling a stake from her boot. "With Echo."

Echo was giggling and uncharacteristically hanging on the vampire's arm like a lifeline. She was enraptured with whatever he was saying.

Buffy approached her. "Echo…you need to come with us, okay? You should have stayed home."

The vampire stiffened visibly. "You know her?" he asked Echo.

Echo's face was a mask of confusion. "No."

"C'mon then, Alice, let's go."

_Alice._

Buffy remembered Echo talking about "Alice" before. "Ech—Alice…please just get away from that man now, okay? Please?"

Echo/Alice shook her head and clung to the guy's arm. "I don't know you…" she squinted at Xander. "..but I know you. Eeew, are you stalking me?"

"No…no!" Xander assured her quickly. "Not at all, I'm a friend of Buffy's and we know someone who looks like you and…" he looked to Buffy for help.

"You have to get away from that man, he could hurt you." Buffy said evenly. "He's a vampire."

"You're crazy." Echo/Alice tugged ion the vampire's sleeve. "Please, let's go!"

His face morphed. "Nah. I'm thinking that maybe after I beat the crap out of the Slayer I'll have a nice snack." He leered at her neck before throwing her into the arms of a bystander that had just shown up and diving for Buffy.

Buffy dodged the blow and barely looked out of the corner of her eye at Echo/Alice, who was staggering backwards in some brunette's arms. Buffy kicked the vamp square in the chest and sent him flying. "That's what you get for messing with the Slayers."

"Slayers?" he asked.

"Yeah, Slayers…well, one not-so-Slayery-Slayer and me!" she dusted him without a second thought, wanting to convince Echo/Alice that she should come with them until her head cleared a little from the drugs she was obviously on because she had been seeing things and no that guy's face was not hideously morphed.

"Buffy…?" Riley said.

"Yeah?"

"We my have a problem."

Buffy looked up in time to see Echo/Alice in a stare down with her exact twin.

"oh dear."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Caroline made her away around Echo, giving her appraising looks. "Well, this is something."

Boyd was tied up to a chair a few feet away. He'd been so surprised by Caroline (Caroline thought he must've thought this brain-dead idiot who claimed to be Echo was her) that he'd let her get the jump on him with no problem at all. He was so stupid, thinking she would ever let him get away with..with everything.

"We are the same." Echo observed mildly. "We are very pretty. Are you your best?"

"Are you a doll?" that was what bothered Caroline so much. She remembered being taken to the Dollhouse and she remembered that the dolls there had talked in such strange ways. Echo wasn't much different, and Caroline doubted that the resemblance was just a coincidence.

"Yes." It was creepy how calm Echo was. "Are you?"

"Never."

"Oh…that's too bad." Echo said. "You seem very strong."

Caroline shrugged. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. So, who exactly are you staying with anyway?"

"Huh?"

The innocent doll act was starting to get old. "Who lives here?"

Echo stared blankly. "Me."

"And…?"

"Buffy."

"Who's Buffy?" asked Caroline.

Echo said, "She lives here…I think she's strong too, but she's not always happy, and she thinks she's not her best."

"Ooookay then. Well, I guess we should see what we can do for a ride outta here. Don't want grumpy to wake up and send us back to the Dollhouse."

"I like the Dollhouse." Echo said, perking up considerably.

"Of course you do." Caroline said. She hauled Echo to her feet. "C'mon."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

After consulting Giles and calling to tell dawn they would be a while (she had ended up going to a friend's, so Willow knew Buffy wouldn't worry too much about her safety), Willow, Xander, and Anya had headed off to the Bronze to see if they could round up any other Echo look-a-likes. As they had been standing looking from Echo/Alice to Echo/Eleanor (apparently that was her name) Echo/Esther had walked along to join the party, and the gang had just then remembered that Echo had been hit with Toth's gun too.

The three hung outside the entrance of the Bronze. It sounded crowded, more than usual.

"You first." Xander said as several catcalls echoed from within.

When she stepped through the door Willow gasped. "Is that…?"

Xander was behind her. "What's the…oh."

"It's another Echo." Anya observed happily enough. "She's very slutty, though…seems to be enjoying that dance and that guy's—"

"Ahn!" Xander protested. "That's...that's not just…it's…we're screwed."

"Oh yeah, definitely." Willow said. "Screwed."

"Like she's what she's doing to that guy?" Anya asked.

"Yup."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Boyd saw the three people from earlier at the front door of the dance club. He'd only arrived there minutes before them after untying himself and deciding to hit the most likely place to find Caroline and Echo. Instead he ran into another one.

This girl was like a wild creature. She was the center of attention, coaxing boys over and teasing them, tauntingly grinding into them before moving on. She even seemed to be okay with girls. She twisted, turned, threw out her hips and hair and danced like it was breathing air. She didn't slow, didn't stop, and didn't seem to care about anything. Boys was entranced all of five seconds before he saw the three people in the doorway. The redhead frantically motioned at Echo's twin and the guy…his name was Xander wasn't it? Xander paled considerably. They didn't seem to know what to do, and after some quick consulting with each other they got a table far away from the dancer and whispered in hushed tones. Boyd snuck up on them—rather, he nearly swam through the mass of dancers and then stood underneath the stairs. None of them had directly seen him before except dawn and Buffy, and neither one of them was here.

"I dunno…" the redhead was saying. "I mean, it has to be Faith, and we all know Buffy gets around Faith…"

"Yeah." Xander agreed. "We should just..leave it."

"And when Willow does the spell?" Anya wanted to know.

"I can do a spell to attract all the other Echos to the Magic Box." Willow said. "That way maybe we could keep Buffy away long enough that she wouldn't see Faith."

"Not that anyone cares, but why do you think Buffy went looking or the other Echos by herself?" Anya asked.

Willow's eyes widened more, if that was possible. "Oh!" she squeaked.

"What?" Boyd thought Xander seemed out of the loop a lot.

"Buffy thinks that maybe Faith will show up somewhere, and where would she look for Faith but here and the graveyard?"

"Double, triple, quadruple crap." Xander said. "What can we do?"

"We can get out of here fast, call Buffy, and tell her we're doing the spell."

They headed out, and when Boyd looked up Faith/Echo was gone.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy sighed and pressed a hand to her throbbing head as she answered her phone. "Yeah, Will?"

"We found a spell that can attract all of Echo's crazy little doubles to the Magic Box, and that way we can piece them tighter there. You in? it will be so much easier than looking around for them everywhere." There was a note of urgency in Willow's voice. "Where are you, anyway?"

"The Bronze." Buffy was outside, listening to the thrum of music. "I was about to go in, but I might as well head back." There was a little sigh of relief from Willow. "Something wrong?"

"Nope."

Buffy was about to turn away when a young girl crept up and said, "Buffy Summers?"

"In the flesh." Buffy said. "You want something?"

"A girl said to give you this." The teen handed her a scrap of paper.

"Thanks." Buffy tucked it in her pocket. "I have to go."

From the dark a figure watched her leave, a smile creeping up her face.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Back at the Magic Box Willow was cleaning up the candles on the floor while a fully restored Echo sat on the ground looking extremely confused. "It was like I was everywhere, and I kinda hurt everywhere."

"Might be a lot of the…er, stuff you were doing tonight." Willow cringed, remembering how many of Echo's duplicated were half-dressed, obviously because they'd had to leave some guy in bed when she did the first spell. One of them had even been giving Willow flirty eyes, which probably meant girls weren't out of the question either.

"Yes, but it's blurry because everything happens at once." Echo said. "Like five minutes ago there was all of me talking to the other me's and we were all confused because we looked the same but I can't remember what they said or thought or had just done because it's stretched out like rubber."

"Uh-huh." It had been chaotic, but they had gotten Riley to keep Buffy far away when they saw faith looming outside the doors and watching in astonishment as the crowd of look-a-likes milled around and chatted. He'd said that he just wanted to talk to her about the Initiative and how they hadn't found a thing on Boyd—which, Willow reasoned, wasn't a lie because they hadn't found out anything since he didn't call them—and by time he was done the second spell was complete.

"You are very strange." Echo said. "You're nervous about something."

"Not anymore."

Buffy was laughing, head thrown back at something Riley had said.

"Not anymore." Echo mimicked. "Not anymore."

"Nope." Willow lied. "Not anymore."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy could see that her friends were worried about something. They kept glancing at her all night, and finally it was too much. She said she had to go sleep and went updaters, curling in bed. A faint rustle reminded her of the paper in her pocket. She pulled out the slip of paper.

_Buffy was at the Bronze, right after her friends had gone off somewhere else. She had suggested one of the little cafes that were popular for vamps. Now she could look without them worrying._

_The music had stopped while the band took a break, but they were back on. "Out next one's for the girls that like to party, and take charge." The lead singer declared. He was greeted with cheers and catcalls. "you rock, ladies!"_

"_Shut your mouth and close the door, I wanna watch you while you take it off. I'm gonna take the blindfold, put it on and then I drop the leather to the floor, I said shut up."_

_Buffy saw her then, gyrating to the sound, pure ferocity and intensity. Pure animal._

"_Turning the lights out, burning the candles, and the mirror's gonna fall tonight…turning the lights out, tighten the handcuffs, and the mirror's gonna fall tonight…"_

_Pure Slayer._

She carefully unfolded the note;

B,

I'm sorry.

Buffy was about to throw it away when she saw the back, and then everything began to blur in a watery stream.

5x5

**A/N: Oh, yeah, that was fun to write. The song is "Mirrors" by Natalia Kills, it is completely Faith's song. And I am an evil person, writing all this craziness. Did Buffy talk to Faith, did she just see her, what's going on here? *gasp* you'll just have to wait, and wonder, and wait…yeah, the stuff I'm on for my aggressively bad flue is making me crazy. Prepare for an update of "Blog for the Supernatural" tomorrow.**


	6. Out of my Mind

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything here. Get a life.**

**A/N: I WROTE THIS ON SATURDAY AND I WAS GOING TO POST IT UT XFINITY SHUT OFF MY WIRELESS SO IT'S NOT MY FAULT I HAD TO POST IT TODAY!**

**yeah…this is a lot of work to update, and I try my best, okay? It might take me one or two weeks to update this, so try to be patient. Oh, in November I'm completely dropping everything for the whole month because of Nanowrimo. Sorry. I'll continue writing in December.**

**Lastly, because of the whole not having time to update issue I'll probably making the chapters a little shorter than they have been, but not by much. This might be a lot shorter than normal, only because I'm trying to update today (Saturday) as soon as I can. You can get the general idea, though…I kinda explained in this why Dawn was so calm when she was at the hospital, because I would have been freaking out if I was her…in fact, there was a time when I was freaking out because of something similar, but that is a long, long story that I cannot tell.**

**Enjoy!**

**P.S. Please forgive me for my horrible spelling, I can't reread my own work, so I only use spellcheck. I'm looking for a beta, if anyone's interested…**

Echo was shadowing Buffy, watching as she started fighting a vampire. Even though everyone said that some of her other personalities had good fighting skills and she was actually getting to be a better fighter Buffy insisted that if Echo wanted to go patrolling she had to watch and stay out of the way. For that matter, Echo had noticed that after the weird incident with Toth's gun Buffy had been avoiding her. She would look at Echo sometimes and her eyes would be full of pain, but then it was gone. Also, whenever Echo was around when Riley came over Buffy made show of kissing him and holding his hand. It was strange.

Just then Riley tackled the vampire Buffy was fighting, to be joined a second later by Spike. Echo knew he was Spike because everyone called him Captain Peroxide, and this person's hair was an unnatural white-blond.

Buffy was yelling at them both, more Spike then Riley. Spike was just starting to walk away when Echo crept out from her hiding place curiously. "Hi…"

"Bloody hell!" Spike yelped, jumping away. "Slayer, how come you didn't tell me _she _was in town?"

Buffy shook her head. "That's Echo."

"What?"

"Echo." She said the name with a hint of disgust and protectively took Riley's hand.

Spike noticed. "Oh, jealous, are you?"

"Shut up!"

"I was all sorts of different people last week, I can't believe you didn't see me." Echo explained to him easily.

Spike said, "You were different people?"

"I'm surprised that you didn't _do _her." Buffy said, glaring. "Apparently her other personalities are all sluts."

"I got shot." said Echo.

"Oh." Spike didn't seem concerned. "But you don' know me?"

"No."

"No memories of talking about…champagne?"

"No."

Buffy sighed. "Whatever…we should go, Spike. Say bye to airhead."

"Forget it." Spike went of into the dark mumbling to himself about women and how they were all insane. And something about "Dru".

"Coming?" Buffy asked. "You wouldn't want to get eaten by a vampire."

Echo nodded. Somehow it sounded like that was what Buffy wanted.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Back at the Magic Box Echo was helping Dawn arrange shelves while Willow and Tara talked and Giles showed Buffy the new training room.

"She's going to love it!" Dawn said. "Maybe then she'll get off my case."

"Maybe." Echo said. "I think she's mad at me."

"Why?"

Echo shrugged. "She keeps looking at me funny, and kissing Riley when I'm around, and acting like I did something wrong…Did I?"

"Did you what?" Dawn asked, placing a statue of a horse on the shelf.

"Do something wrong."

Dawn turned her full attention to Echo. "Listen, back when you…when you were faith, or who knows what, you stole Buffy's body and slept with Riley. Then when she went to L.A. to see if Angel was okay she found him helping you and misconstrued it as something else. We think that when you became all those people in your head…"

"One of them was Faith." Echo said. "And she saw Faith?"

Dawn shook her head. "No. At least we don't think so, Riley kept her distracted."

Echo felt guilty about what must have happened, but she didn't understand. Why was Buffy blaming her? She hadn't directly done anything. Not on purpose.

Echo could hear laughing coming from the training room. "She seems to like it."

"Good for you, then." said Dawn. "As to this whole hate-love relationship, I suggest you stay out of her way and far away from Riley."

Echo nodded absently as she saw Buffy and riley walking out of the training room, laughing and swinging their hands in the air as they walked. "Uh-huh."

There was something familiar about him now that made her feel sick.

…_Faith leered at Riley from the doorway in a body that didn't fit her like her own. "Hi, sweetie." She said, voice like ice and honey. "I'm home."..._

Echo shuddered. There were some things she didn't want to know.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy sighed, cuddling up to Riley as he finally fell asleep. She had to give him credit; three times in a row was pretty good considering she was the Slayer, even if she did try to go easy on him.

"Hey…"

He was awake? "yeah?"

Riley drew her closer, affectionately kissing her head. Buffy loved feeling this way, when he was just nice to her by doing little things. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." Buffy lied.

"Something happened with Echo when she was all those different people, didn't it?"he asked.

"Maybe." Buffy said. She would never tell him what really happened, but might as well tell him half the truth. "I…nothing major, just something silly, okay?"

"What?" Riley persisted.

Buffy said, "I was hoping to see Faith…but I guess since Echo doesn't remember being Faith as much then Faith wasn't around."

"I guess." Riley said. "But why would you want to see her?"

Buffy could tell he was getting uncomfortable. Even with Echo around they hadn't talked about Faith much, just Echo. "I had some things I wanted to say to her."

"Okay." Sweet, reliable, gullible Riley. As he started falling asleep Buffy reached to the table next to the bed and pulled a slip of paper from the pocket in her jeans.

_5x5_

She just wished she knew what it was supposed to mean.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

The next morning Echo was up bright and early, laughing at how Dawn was piling cereal high in bowl just for the prize inside. Echo wasn't sure why, but Dawn was more sparkly today than she usually was. It seemed to have something to do with how much Echo could remember from her other personalities. After the incident with the multiple Echos she hadn't been able to remember as much. It hurt to think too hard.

"You want an omelet?" Joyce asked Dawn.

"With ketchup, please." said Dawn. Echo made a face at her from across the counter. "What?"

"Ketchup?"

Dawn giggled. "Hey, it tastes good, okay?"

Echo couldn't help but smile. Dawn was the only one that didn't judge her for things she couldn't remember doing.

Suddenly she noticed Joyce had paused mid-step and was staring at Dawn.

"Mom?" Dawn asked.

"Who are you?" Joyce mumbled, passing out on the floor.

Echo couldn't move. She sat there, horrified, while Dawn pulled the phone off the wall, rapidly dialing the number. "Hello? Yes, my Mom fell down, she's unconscious…1630 Revello Drive…I don't know! She just fell!" Dawn sobbed, starting to shake. "Please, please hurry!"

Slamming the phone to the counter Dawn raced back top her Mom. "Mom…Mom? Mom, please wake up!"

Echo finally moved her legs, stumbling down top the floor with Dawn. "Dawnie, she's gonna be okay…you hear me? She's gonna be okay!"

"No…no…" Dawn was shaking Joyce's shoulders frantically. "Please don't…!"

"Dawnie!" Echo shouted, pulling her away. This seemed too familiar, like she had lived it so many times already. "She. Will. Be. Okay. The ambulance will be here in a minute, and she's breathing. You need to calm down." The last words were spoken with deadly seriousness. "Okay?"

"She can't die." Dawn whispered. "She can't die."

Echo pulled Dawn close, hugging her. "Yeah…she'll be okay, I promise…" How many people had she seen die? Just another thing she didn't want to know.

By time the ambulance reached the house Dawn had calmed down enough that she could explain what happened, and then the two sat out in the hospitals waiting room while dawn played with some doctor's stethoscope. "I'm sorry." She said. "I mean, for freaking out. It never occurred to me that…something bad could happen to Mom. It's Always Buffy I'm afraid I'm going to lose."

"I know." Echo said. "You thought that she would always be there, but I'm sure she's fine."

Before she could get another word in Buffy was racing towards them from nowhere, embracing Dawn hurriedly. "Dawnie?"

"I'm okay." Dawn said placidly.

"And so is your Mom." A doctor said, walking from inside Joyce's room. "I'm Ben."

Echo tuned out everything that he was saying, happy that Joyce would be okay. Dawn was already distracted, listening to everyone's heartbeat. She went to Ben, then Buffy, then Echo. It reminded her of something, someone with a scarred face and a quiet voice. And whiskey.

Dawn moved onto Riley, eyes widening. "Uhhh….."

"What, Dawn?" Buffy asked.

"You might want to listen to this."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Boyd was beyond frustrated by now. Topher had said that all the Echos had unexplainably gone to the same place and then it had just been Echo again. He hadn't seen her, and Buffy hadn't been home at all the past week.

"What do you suggest we do now?" He asked Topher, on the phone.

"I don't know…" a pause. "Try to find something she associated with strongly, and then try to lure her somewhere with it. Maybe something from being Caroline?"

"Not strong enough, Topher, she didn't even want a treatment." Boyd said. "And Caroline wasn't a real person, she was an imprint. Faith was a real person."

"This the Faith Lehane people keep telling you about?"

"Yes. All I know if she was involved in a murder and went to jail, but she was released early." Boys said. "I've explained this all before, Topher! Can't you find something from _that _past that I could use?"

He heard keys clicking in the background. "Nothing much…she was poor as a child, and then she up and left…there was a woman she stayed with for a while…" more clicking. "Why don't you ask that girl…Buffy?"

"She won't let me in her house." He realized how stupid that sounded. 'But I could break in like last time. What chance is there that Caroline will still be there?"

"Probably not good…"

"Thanks, Topher, I'll call you later."

He hung the phone up and got in his car. Surely Buffy had something of Faith's, an old photo or letter. He just had to find something that would trigger old memories and make Echo come with him.

When he got to the house it was empty, so there was no problem with breaking in. He headed straight for her bedroom, searching through her closet and nightstand, but there was nothing. Only one picture, one of Echo glaring at the camera like she was about to kill it. She seemed to be standing in a library, but there was nothing to suggest an emotional bond, just a dislike of cameras.

He was about to give up when he noticed a scrap of paper on the bed, halfway under the pillow. He pulled it out and unfolded it;

_B,_

_I'm sorry._

He flipped it over;

_5x5_

B was probably Buffy, but had Faith given her this note? Or had Echo?

It was time for some serious investigation. Boyd investigated the bed carefully, looking I over again. nothing else was there. He was about to take the picture of Faith when he noticed it was double-sided and turned it over.

In this picture the room was crowded and hazy, but he could make out who he assumed was Faith. She looked younger, and was a blur of pale arms and brown hair, mixing with more tanned arms and blond hair. A younger Buffy was dancing with Faith, the two of them surrounded by eager-looking boys.

Faith was the one he had seen dancing.

He took out his phone. "Topher? I think I might have something." He made his way out of the bedroom. "Can you send a team down here?"

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Echo was headed for Spike's so-called house, heart racing. Riley had been missing for hours now and somehow Echo was sure that if he died Buffy would automatically blame her despite what really caused it. Also, she liked Riley, eve though he could barely make eye contact with her.

She opened the door and looked in to see Spike talking to someone blond...it was Harmony!

"You again?" Spike asked with disgust. Harmony made a little noise like someone had steeped on her foot and dashed away. "What do you want?"

"I need to find Riley." Echo said. It was scary being here without Buffy, especially when her fighting skills weren't the best—it was harder to call up memories now—she knew she had to pretend she didn't care. Spike had obviously been afraid of Faith, and she intended to keep it that way.

"Buffy was already here asking the same thing." Spike said. "And I don't feel like there's any reason I should help you. You're crazy."

"Spikey…" Harmony whined, coming back into view. "Can't we go get that chip out of your head already? I don't like her…"

"That's Faith, you idiot." snarled Spike. "Harm! She'll go tell the Slayer, and we can't have that, can we?"

"What's a chip?" Echo asked. She knew she was losing ground fast, and she knew what he as talking about. Buffy said the chip kept him from hurting people.

Spike laughed. "Oh, you want to play that game?"

"You can't hurt me." Echo said. "You can't hurt me."

Harmony smiled. "But I can…" she looked at Spike. "But she's a Slayer?'

"Don't know." He said. "She's seems out of it…Buffy called her 'Echo'."

"I am Echo." said Echo, voice starting to shake. "I'm Echo…but I can remember things, and I can fight, and…I'm Echo. I'm Echo." She could feel the memories slipping out of reach…that had never happened unless she was calm, never.

"Yeah. You can take her." Spike said.

Harmony approached slowly, but when Echo didn't move she ran at Echo and slammed her into a wall. Echo helplessly batted at Harmony while Spike came over with a bundle of rope. Harmony, twisted Echo's hands behind her back, tying them. In her mind Echo knew this had happened to her before too. Instead of a memory she got an overload of emotions and started screaming.

"Shut up!" Spike pressed a hand to her mouth. "Stop doing that, will you?"

Echo couldn't breathe. It was like that time, and one before it, and after it, and there was always white-hot pain and fear that she couldn't run away from. It was always there in the back of her mind and they couldn't get rid of it. Her vision started to blur, and the last thought she had before she blacked out was that maybe she wouldn't be scared anymore.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

When She woke Echo was tied up to something at the wall, in a crouching position. She cough on smoke in the air, just in time to hear, "Please put that out, you can't smoke in here."

Echo was in a small surgery room, Spike in the table a few feet away having a nervous-looking doctor operate on his head. Harmony was smoking and watching the doctor.

"…Uhhh…." Echo managed.

"So she finally wakes." Spike said. "How you feeling, Dru?"

"I'm Echo." Echo whispered. She was Echo. She wasn't Dru.

Spike laughed cruelly. "Yeah, you kept saying that even when you were out cold. Hate to tell you, but after this you'll be my first human blood in months. Can't have Buffy knowing about this until I jump her in my sleep."

"You're going to kill me." Echo clarified. "I am Echo…I'm something else, too."

"A Slayer." Spike agreed. "That will make exactly four dead by my hands when I finish you and Buffy."

"Four dead." Echo repeated. She felt like she was going to be sick, everything was spinning around in loops.

Spike said, "Yeah, what's it to you?"

"Four dead." She said again. "You can't hide from a ghost." Only the bad memories were in her head, the ones where she was scared. Where that man, the ghost, had hurt her when she was little. She got away.

"I'm not a ghost." Spike said. He almost sounded like he was amused by her. "Honestly, you are as crazy as I thought."

"I don't like her." Harmony said. "I think she's just faking so she can kill me for Buffy when I'm not looking."

"Harm…" Spike began. "She can't bloody remember being a Slayer."

"Champagne." Echo said suddenly. It was there, where the memory of the strange body and Riley were. "And horses…I think. Maybe it was galloping."

"What?" Spike almost sat up even though his head had been cut open.

"It's there." She said. "With the other vampire and Buffy and the dark room when I kissed her and ran. It's Faith."

"See?" Harmony said.

"Hurry up!" Spike ordered the doctor.

Half an hour later he was getting his head bandaged while he stare at Echo. "Now," he said, sliding off the table, "let's see how much you remember of Faith. Then I'll kill you."

Echo pressed closer to the wall, cowering away from him. _White-hot pain_.

That's when Buffy and Riley crashed through the doors.

Echo didn't see much, but soon Spike and Harmony were running for their lives, and Riley had somehow gotten shot in the leg. He was saying something but he collapsed and the doctor pulled him onto the table. "Get her out, now." He ordered.

Buffy, eyes still on Riley, pulled Echo free from the ropes and dragged her out. "Are you INSANE?" she asked once they were far enough away. "Why would you go to Spike? Why?"

"I wanted to help." Echo said. She was afraid she would start to cry, but she couldn't. Buffy would laugh at her. "You were scared for Riley, and I thought that if he died you would be sad, and you would say it was my fault. I wouldn't kill anyone."

Buffy glared at her. "But you would! You did kill someone, Faith, so why should I trust you?"

"I-I didn't." Echo said. "I didn't kill anyone."

"Yeah." Buffy realized what she had called Echo. "I know…you're not her."

"I didn't." Echo said, tears falling down her cheeks. "I didn't ever, I wouldn't."

"Echo…Echo, please, I didn't mean it…" Buffy said, struggling to comfort Echo.

…_Faith looked at the dust of the vampire that had killed her Watcher, her only friend, then at Buffy. She desperately wanted to cry, but she wasn't going to. She was always strong. She did wish Buffy would say something, though…_

_Buffy reached down and helped her stand. After a moment she said, "You hungry?"_

"_Starving." Faith lied. She knew she would be sick later, but Buffy just didn't get it…_

"I'm sorry…" Echo cried brokenly, sinking to the floor. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to…I didn't mean to get in trouble and I didn't ever mean to kill someone…I'm sorry!"

Buffy didn't speak. She was considering running when Willow, Xander, and Dawn came in.

"Echo?" Dawn was at her friend's side in a second, giving Buffy a death glare. "What did you do?"

"I…I called her Faith. I said she would kill people, which she did." Buffy admitted, backing away.

Echo shook her head frantically. Dawn was trying to comfort her, stroking her hair. "I didn't, I didn't!" Echo said, almost begging.

"Hey…" Dawn said. "You didn't do anything wrong…Buffy's just bipolar, he gets mad at everyone. She's like a monster."

Buffy gave her a withering stare. "Whatever."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

A few hours later Echo had calmed down and Buffy was with Riley, so Echo said she would head home. As she was walking she noticed a picture on the ground and picked it up. It was her, dancing…

…_there was a blur, but she was always at the same place. She danced with anyone nearby, even Buffy. That was when they were friends, when they would hang out and laugh over silly things like boys. It was safer there…_

Echo knew she had to go there as soon as possible. Everything would be better.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Boys sat in the back of the van on his phone, watching the girl a few feet away carefully. She groaned against the gag in her mouth when the driver hit a bump. "Yes, Topher, she's fine…might be some bruising, the guys had to be a little rough to get her. I think she can still remember some of the fighting moves from her previous imprints…Otherwise, she's fine. I'm _sure_, Topher. I'll talk to you later."

He slipped the phone back into his pocket, crawling over to Echo. She tried to wiggle away, but her arms and legs were tied. A whimper of fear escaped through the gag.

"Don't be scared." Boyd said. HE wasn't sure if this programming would work if the treatment one hadn't, but it was worth a try. "Everything is okay now. You're going to be fine."

The code words had no effect, and Echo shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. Boyd sighed. This was going to be a long drive home.

**A/N: yeah, if you didn't know I was evil you know now. Of course somehow Buffy and the others will rescue Echo, but that is for another time.**

**Review, please. So many people (I think) read this and don't review, but reviews help me keep writing.**


	7. Instincts Part 1

**Disclaimer: Still don't own anything. Just the plotline that I'm making up.**

**A/N: Yeah…I was viciously ill over the weekend, I had planned to write this chapter, but…oh darn. It's here now, so yay! Thanks to all the reviews :) I will try to answer some later.**

**I'm being really, really conservative with my AN, I've noticed that usually these are like a page and a half long, and who really wants to listen to me rant? **

**PLEASE CHECK MY PAGE FOR DAILY UPDATES. It will make your life easier if you know that I haven't died and am writing furiously :-P**

**Rawr.**

**On with the fanfic! (I apologize for a minor sorta-kinda swear coming up momentarily…and the extreme shortness of this chapter, but I'm sooooo busy all the time, and I felt too guilty to post another two-part chapter.)**

**A/N #2: Okay, this hasn't been updated over the weekend because A NOREASTER BLEW IN AND SNOWED ALL SATURDAY AND THEN I LOST POWER THROUGH SUNDAY AND MONDAY! Which is just so beyond frustrating :( I'm currently at a hotel where there IS wireless, thanks goodness. This should be posted sometime in the afternoon…unless my Dad decides we have to go home before the power is back so he won't have to drive us a billion miles to get to school (which got cancelled Monday and today!). Also, this will be a two-parter, despite any guilt on my behalf. December will make up for everything, though.**

Echo struggled against the restraints, mumbling into the duct tape on her mouth. This was like the van in her memories, the one she always went away in when she needed a treatment. Echo had no idea what a treatment was or why the idea of one terrified her, but apparently that was where she was headed. The Dollhouse, for one of the mysterious treatments.

The man with her, who had introduced himself as Boyd, was now watching her from another corner. He kept sighing into his phone, trying to explain Echo's condition to someone named Topher, a name she felt she should know and trust, but didn't.

"She is _fine_, Topher, I swear!" Boyd said for the hundredth time. "Shaken up, maybe, but we're lucky we found her in this relatively good condition…Toper…yes, we're almost there. Then you can do whatever test you want, okay?"

He nodded and "Mmmm-hmmmed" a few more times before bidding Topher a good day and shutting the phone. He looked over at Echo. "How are you doing?"

"Mmmph…" she mumbled, meaning to say something much ruder. " 'Ooo…mmmph…'r…aaaa…bsssstrrrdddd…."

"I see." He said. "So I guess there's no point to un-taping your mouth because you clearly have no wish to help me. I _am_ very sorry about doing all this to you, Echo, but it's for your own good. Whatever those people told you about who you might've been isn't true. You'll forget soon."

Forget?

"You see, you got out. I'm sure it was Alpha that let you go, but you're the only one of the escaped dolls that got anywhere. The others were just too confused, too scared to go very far. Why did you go to Sunnydale?"

Echo glared at him and shook her head.

"Alright. We're here, anyway."

Echo was dragged roughly out of the van by several men, wishing she wasn't so scared. She couldn't call up any of her fighting skills, and she was petrified. The Dollhouse, once inside, was eerily familiar. She remembered doing yoga on the little wooden floor with the other zombie-like people here. It was scary how well she could remember it compared to everything else. Sunnydale was getting foggier by the moment, along with all the other people in her head—Alice, Taffy, Faith—which meant she wouldn't be able to defend herself.

In a white room full of complicated machines Topher strapped her to a white chair that glowed blue and hummed. "I can't believe you're barely even hurt." He marveled. "So, where were you, anyway?"

"I don't know."Echo lied. She decided that the only thing she could to was play dumb and hope that they bought it.

Topher asked, "Really? Boyd said you got to this little town named Sunnyhell—"

"Sunnydale." Boyd corrected from the corner.

"Sunnydale." Topher said. "And you got along very well with the people there. They took you in, and it was because you look exactly like…"

Echo stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Don't give me that look." Said Topher. "Fine, you won't say it then I will; Faith. You look like Faith because you probably were Faith. Do you know anything about her?"

"I have no idea what you're saying." Echo said again. "I don't understand what is going on or where I am or who you are, but I'm feeling inclined to call the police."

"See?" Boyd said. "She doesn't want us to know something, but we can't torture her to give us information…"

Topher motioned for Boyd to follow him out of the room, and the two left Echo alone.

She looked around, trying to see if there was a single sane person in the entire building. She guessed that everyone here was either a doll or worked here feeding, clothing, and caring for the dolls. She could remember sitting in this chair before, and then after that she was always blank. Everything in the world was puppies and sunshine.

They were going to take away her memories as Echo, and all the things that she had remembered while at Sunnydale.

There was no way out. She struggled, tried to remember anything that would help, but Topher and Boyd were back in the room before she knew it.

"Please just relax and lean your head back." Topher instructed. He pressed a button, causing the chair to slowly recline.

"No…no! No, you can't do this!" Echo screamed, tugging at her restraints. She could feel pain growing in her head as it lowered, and she fought to keep it above the glowing blue rim that was going to be around her head in a second. "Please, don't! I can't forget—"

Then there was blackness, and all the things that had happened to her were whirling away until her head was empty.

"Hello, Echo." Topher said, smirking at Boyd.

"Did I fall asleep?"

"For a little while."

"Shall I go now?"

Topher knew that all it would take was a little memory wipe to fix her mind, making her remember the command words. "If you like."

Echo got up serenely, making her way out to see the other dolls. Sierra was the first. "Good day."

"Good day." Sierra replied, stopping to look closely at Echo. "You have been gone for a long time."

"I have?" Echo blinked. She had only been gone a few minutes, hadn't she?

"Yes. I saw you come in earlier, but you were tied up and upset. There was shouting upstairs."

"I have been here forever." Echo said, though she was starting to feel like she shouldn't be in the dollhouse. That was strange. She should want to be here so she could be her best.

"Oh. Okay. I have to go swim in the pool." Sierra said after a moment. She walked off, leaving Echo standing alone.

Echo nodded at Sierra's back. "…five by five."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

"This is all my fault!" Buffy moaned, massaging her head. "I'm so stupid, I just scared her off, it's all my fault—"

"Hey." Riley interjected. He was holding her on his lap, in Buffy's living room, surrounded by the other Scoobies. Echo had been missing for nearly three days since Buffy had accused her of being a killer. "You didn't mean to hurt her."

Buffy shook her head. "I did. I was just so angry because of what Faith did, what she has done in her past…I wanted to tell her what I really thought of her for once in my life, but I shouldn't have. She said she was sorry…"

"Echo said she was sorry?" Willow asked.

"No." said Buffy. "It was when she was all those different people, I think that Faith tried to tell me she was sorry. I…I went looking for her, and I saw her, and then some girl gave me a note from her. She said she was sorry."

"You WHAT?" Xander yelped. "Are you clinically insane?"

"She said she was sorry." Buffy retorted harshly. "And now because I had to be stupid and vindictive she's run off somewhere."

Anya asked, "Where? It's not like any of us have a clue where she's gone."

Dawn was sulking in the corner of the room, giving everyone death glares. "Of course you wouldn't, because nobody here actually cared about Echo."

"Dawn…" said Buffy, but she didn't know what to say. It was true. She had tried so hard to pretend that Echo wasn't there. "Maybe she's doing what she did last time..when she stole my body. She might have run to L.A. to Angel. Sure, she probably has no clue why she's going there, but she found us, so she can find him."

"That actually makes sense." Tara said. "Repeating an old pattern, trying to find that safest place to go."

"Should we go to L.A.?" Riley asked. "With your Mom still not feeling well?"

"I heard that." Joyce called from the other room. "And I'm _fine. _You need to find Echo." She appeared in the doorway. "She might be in trouble."

"Are you sure?" Buffy asked. The last thing she needed was a family emergency while she was in L.A.

"Yes, I'm sure. I can go visit your Grandmother for the weekend, if it makes you feel better."

"Sounds good to me." Buffy said. "Okay, I'll head to L.A. tomorrow and the rest of you can stay here incase anything turns up—"

"I'm coming with you." Riley said, his eyes shadowed with a hint of jealousy. "Wouldn't want any more Angel drama."

"Riley!"

"And you might need help of the magical type." Willow said. "So count me in."

"And me." Tara said.

"If they're coming, so am I." Xander said.

Anya nodded in agreement. "Me too."

Giles sighed. "I should come to keep you from tearing each other apart."

"Fine, but not Dawn." Buffy said as dawn opened her mouth. "I'm sorry, Dawn, but it just isn't a good idea.

"Fine." Dawn said darkly. "But you had better be nice to Echo, because this tim,e she might not come back if you say something worse to her."

"I won't." Buffy promised. "I'm not going to hurt her anymore."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Echo was headed to get a treatment, wondering if it was because she was all confused again. The past couple of days she had continually felt like there was somewhere else she should be, but someone there was angry at her. She drew pictures of scary people with long, pointy teeth, she knew fighting moves that she couldn't remember learning, and she kept feeling this tugging in her gut, like she was going to be sick. Sometimes it made her feel sad, or guilty, or upset, and she had no clue why.

"Hello, Echo." Topher greeted her. He led her to the chair. "Are you ready for your treatment?"

"Yes." She hoped it would help.

Instead, a minute later, Emily sat up and looked around, confused for half a second before locking eyes with Topher and smiling cordially. "Topher." She glanced at the clock. "Oh, shoot! I'm going to be late, and I've left Jack with the babysitter! She's careless a lot of the time, so I generally bring him everywhere." She looked at Topher apologetically.

"It's not a problem." Topher said. "Boyd will go with you so you can get some clothes and then he'll give you a ride home, okay?"

"Sounds good."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Exactly a day and a half later the gang had been in L.A. for an entire day, scouring the alleys, police stations, and asking around (Angel included) but there was no sign of Echo.

"Why are we even bothering with the police?" Buffy complained as they walked into yet another crowded police station. "Why would she come to the police?"

"Um, Buffy?" Willow said nervously, nudging Buffy's arm.

"It's not like she's even that smart—"

"Buffy?"

"What?"

Willow pointed to where everyone else was staring. Inside a small room with a baby next to her Echo was talking to a police officer.

"She has a baby?" was Buffy's first reaction, followed by, "Why is she even here?"

"I don't know." Riley said. "Maybe it's one of those weird people from in her head."

"Hey…what's she doing?"

Echo had gotten up and was out in the main office, staring down a man viciously. "You can't hurt me anymore." She told him.

The man looked outraged. "That is my son, but that is not my wife!" he shouted. Two men started coming at Echo, and she pulled the baby behind her.

"No one wants to hurt you." A woman told Echo, but she shook her head.

The next few minutes were horrible. The two men grabbed away the baby—Jack—from Echo. She started screaming and struggling with all her might. "Jack! No! Give me my baby back! Don't take him! Jack! JACK!"

"We have to do something!" Buffy shouted over the noise. She didn't know why, but she had never seen Echo or Faith ever act so protective of anyone. She couldn't just watch while Echo begged and screamed for her baby.

She ran across the room, tackling one of the men that held Echo back. "Ma'am, what are you doing? Stop!" he grunted as she twisted his arm behind his back.

"Jack!" Echo screamed. Buffy looked up in time to see her struggle free and try to chase after the man that said he was the baby's father. He was nearly out the door, being herded by more strange men in suits. She recognized one as Boyd, that man that had come looking for Echo earlier.

Echo barely made it more than a step or two when some the actual policemen came to the suited mens rescue and helped pin her to the ground. Buffy pretended that the man who had her had overpowered her, allowing him to drag her to a seta next to Echo.

"Echo?" she asked softly. The woman didn't respond. "Echo?"

"Jack…" she murmured. "I'm sorry, what are you saying?"

"You're not Echo." Buffy realized. "Okay, who are you?"

Echo wiped the tears from her face. "I'm Emily. Why are you trying to help me?"

"I…I know someone that's very, very, _very_, similar to you." Buffy said, hoping it would suffice. "She…she looks a lot like you, actually, and I just thought that maybe you needed someone to stand up for you."

"They keep…saying things." Emily/Echo—Buffy decided she was completely Emily right now, not a trace of Faith or Echo—confided in a low whisper. "They keep saying I need to be taken somewhere for a 'treatment', and that the man over there, Boyd Langeton, is my 'Handler'."

"That's what you—I mean….that's what this other person told me. They were in a similar situation." Buffy said. "Boyd…I met him, and he seems awfully suspicious of me."

"They're coming back!" Emily whimpered. Two me were walking towards her, steeling themselves to grab her. "I just want my baby back…"

"You'll get him back, I promise." Buffy assured her, gently placing a hand on Emily's arm. "When I count to three, you run that way." she gestured to the left of a less bulky man. "Try to get past him and you'll see a van outside, with those people—" she pointed out the other Scoobies and then motioned for them to get to the car "—in it. I'll try and keep the other men and police away from you."

"O-Okay." Emily said. Buffy was surprised by the trust shining in her eyes.

"Ready? One…two…three!"

**A/N: NaNoWriMo, here I come! (If you'd like to read the novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo I'd be happy to share it, just PM me)**


	8. Instincts Part 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own BtVS or Dollhouse.**

**A/N: Hey, I'm back! I managed to write the 50,000 words required for NaNoWriMo, and now I'm going to dedicate December to trying to finish this story (I plan for it to end when season five of Buffy does, and then I'll start the sequel, "What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You", set in season six. After that season seven will be the third and final installment… the title I have in my head as of now is "Calls Me Home" , referring to Echo regaining all her memories as Faith and Caroline) and to try and get at least halfway through Colorblind (A Vampire Diaries fic).**

**I hope you like part two. In my head this is taking them through episode "No Place Like Home" so the whole monk/Glory/ "Dawn is the Key?" thing will happen later and in a slightly different way.**

**On to the story! Keep in mind that I can't write for Lorne very well. And this was not spellchecked.**

Last month:

_"They're coming back!" Emily whimpered. Two me were walking towards her, steeling themselves to grab her. "I just want my baby back…"_

_"You'll get him back, I promise." Buffy assured her, gently placing a hand on Emily's arm. "When I count to three, you run that way." she gestured to the left of a less bulky man. "Try to get past him and you'll see a van outside, with those people—" she pointed out the other Scoobies and then motioned for them to get to the car "—in it. I'll try and keep the other men and police away from you."_

_"O-Okay." Emily said. Buffy was surprised by the trust shining in her eyes._

_"Ready? One…two…three!"_

On "three!" the blond woman next to me sprang at the guards and dropped one to his knees in about five seconds flat. The other tried to pull out his gun but found that his arm had already been twisted behind him and Buffy had him crushed under her foot. "Go!" she instructed. I looked back wildly to where the man who I thought I could trust was holding Jack. "Go, Emily, I'll get Jack!"

"But—"

"Go!" she screamed, letting the man up and sprinting towards Jack.

I finally did what she said and ran, attention drawn away from me as she leapt over a desk and plowed through the crowd of civilians. I went the other way, out the door and into the bright morning sunshine. I looked around for the people she had come with—they were a large group, and I remembered one having distinctly red hair—when I spotted them standing by a van. "Hello? Hello? Excuse me, that girl in there said to come to you, she said you would help me—"

"Echo!" The man with a British accent said. "Echo, are you alright?"

"Why does everyone call me Echo?" asked Emily. She was starting to doubt the sanity of this entire group, but it was all she had at the moment. "My name isn't Echo, it's Emily! It's always been Emily, as long as I can remember."

"Er…. Yes, of course." He said. "So… any chance that you miraculously remember our names?"

She shook her head, looking back anxiously at the police station. "No, I don't. What is taking her so long?"

To answer the question the woman came bursting through the doors, shouting "Get in the van, NOW!" to them, police right behind her. She had Jack in her arms. "Giles, start the van!"

Emily found herself being unceremoniously shoved to the floor of the van and squashed by everyone as the scrambled in. The British man, Giles, started the ignition and hit the gas, speeding down the road as fast as he could. The whole van shook and made ominous growling noises, clearly not built for the kind o f speed it was at currently.

"Can't… breathe…" Emily gasped. She heard similar complaints from the other passengers. She heard crying, Jack's crying. "Jack!" she struggled to get to her hands and knees. "Please, let me have him, please…"

The blond woman leaned from the front seat and carefully transferred Jack to Emily's arms. "Here."

"Oh, thank God!" Emily cried, tears flowing from her eyes and blurring her vision. Jack's cries quieted. "It's okay, Jack, I'm here. I won't let Daddy hurt you, don' worry. Don't worry."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy had never seen Echo, or Faith for that matter, so emotional over anything before. It touched her to see Echo/Emily crying over her child (that she didn't understand—how did she get a baby that fast? And where did she get him?) like she was really his mother. _For all I know, maybe he _is _Faith's. She's only been with us for a while, maybe she came back here for him._

"Um… excuse me?" she ventured after Emily's crying slowed. "Emily?"

"Yes?" Jack was still held tight to her chest.

Buffy wasn't sure how to put it. "Well… would you mind very much going back to Sunnydale with us?"

"Why?"

"Because the person I know that looks like you is actually you. See, you keep having this memory problem where you think you've been other people. The names I remember are Alice, Taffy, Eleanor… anyway, something completely hijacked your brain, because you never have gotten his bad… or gotten an actual person."

"What?" Emily looked alarmed. "You mean Jack? He's mine, I know that."

"Never said he wasn't." Buffy said quickly. "I'm just saying that you aren't Emily, you're Echo… technically, the first name I knew you by was Faith, but you seem stuck on Echo."

"It's not so bad though." Willow jumped in. "You're pretty nice… you don't try to kill anyone anymore as Echo, and you're friends with Dawn. You don't have super Slayer-y powers anymore either…"

"Sweetie?" said Tara.

"Yeah?"

"She probably doesn't know what any of that means, especially the Slayer part."

"Oh."

Buffy sighed. "Perfect. Well, we'll have to go to Angel's anyway."

"Angel again?" Riley groused. "I thought we only needed to ask him where she was, and we found her."

"We need somewhere to stay." Buffy said. She could see how much Riley was hating the idea. "I know you and Angel aren't on the friendliest of terms after the fight and the thing with the beating up of Initiative people… but we can't stay at a hotel, and we still don't know what's wrong with Echo, so that means that Angel is our best bet."

Riley gritted his teeth, but finally nodded in reluctance. "Fine. We can have his little Fang Gang research stuff for us."

"What are you all talking about?" asked Emily, rocking Jack. "Not to sound mean, but you all sound kind of crazy."

"We are kind of crazy." Said Xander. "Courtesy of Sunnydale."

"Oh… okay. Is… is 'Angel's' a safe hotel?"

"Yeah." Said Buffy. "It's also free."

"Sounds good, I guess." said Emily. Buffy wondered why she wasn't less terrified than she should be. She had just gotten into a car with people she didn't know. Was it because she subconsciously knew they wouldn't hurt her? "That's about the only price I can afford right now."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

The first time that Buffy had gone to see Angel and ask him about Echo he had been the only one there, saying that the others were out working. Now she could see that Cordy, Wesley, an African-American man, and a green demon were all in the lobby. Wesley and Cordy both looked up and spotted her, saying, "Buffy?"

"Hey, guys."

"Buffy?" the green demon asked. "So you're the one that broke Angel-cake's heart? Well, you are very pretty."

"Uh... thanks." Said Buffy.

"_That_ Buffy." The other man said suddenly, apparently having heard of her before. "I'm Gunn."

"I'm Lorne." The demon added.

"Hi, again, and I'm Buffy… obviously, because Wes and Cordy already called me that." She said. "Do you think it would be alright if the Scooby gang stayed here a few days? We have a bit of a problem with echo… has Angel mentioned her being here? Or me being here?"

"You came here earlier?" asked Wes.

"Yeah." Buffy said. "I guess it makes sense that he didn't tell you."

"You are welcome to stay." Cordy said. "Maybe it will cheer Angel up and get him to stop brooding for more than a minute at a time… of course, it's _you_ we're talking about. He'll just brood even more than usual."

Buffy shrugged. "Let's hope for the best."

She went out and told the others to come in, taking the rear with Emily. "So, the people we're going to see have… met you." She explained, keeping it light as possible. "And you've done some pretty horrible things to them, so they might act hostile towards you…"

"What did I do?" asked Emily with "deer-in-the-headlights" eyes. "Did I kill some they loved?"

"No, you just weren't very… er… _friendly_ when you came to visit. It's best you don't know the details." Buffy said, remembering her promise to Dawn that she wouldn't hurt Echo anymore. "But you might want to steer clear of the brown-haired girl, Cordy, and the other British guy, Wesley. I can promise you that they won't hurt you, but I can't promise that they won't tell you things you don't want to hear."

"Alright." Emily hugged Jack closer to her. He had long since fallen asleep. "And will Jack be safe?"

"Absolutely." _I don't know, to tell you the truth_. Buffy couldn't know if the baby—no, his name was Jack—was even Emily's.

Inside there were the sounds of greeting being passed and mindless chatter beginning to work it's way up to full volume when Buffy entered, slightly in front of Emily, and the entire room became quiet.

"You…" Wesley hissed. "Why is she here?"

"I thought she was in jail." Cordy said, glaring at Emily like she thought looks could and would kill.

"Jail?" Emily whimpered softly to Buffy. "Why would I be in jail?"

"No reason." Buffy whispered to her. Out loud she said, "Guys, she... she isn't Faith."

"Yeah, and I wasn't tortured by her a year ago." Wesley snapped. Emily shrank further behind Buffy.

"It's true." Tara said softly. "What Buffy said is true."

"She doesn't know who she is." Buffy explained, venturing a few steps into the lobby. "She showed up during the summer and she said she was 'Echo', and she doesn't remember us. She remembers being other people, and she can remember some memories of being Faith. Right now she thinks she's Emily… so, say hi to Emily."

"Um…" Emily mumbled. "Hi, guys?"

"Am I supposed to believe this crap?" Cordy asked, incredulous. "She's _faking_, Buffy, she has to be."

"She's never tried to hurt anyone." Buffy said shortly. "If you're not okay with her being here then you can leave."

Cordy said, "Does Angel even know about this?"

"Yes. I came earlier, and I told him what happened."

Angel chose that moment to walk in the front door, mouth open and about to say something, but he was drowned out by Cordelia protesting over the idea of the Scoobies and Faith staying with them while the Scoobies all tried to explain why it wasn't a bad idea at all.

"Hey! HEY!" that was Gunn.

"Buffy?" Angel said, noticing her. Before she could stop him he had embraced her, earning a scathing glare from Riley. Buffy hugged back as quick as she could, backing away and whispering "Riley". Angel sighed, but nodded. "Hey, you found Echo?"

"Emily, as of now." Emily corrected. "Hi, Angel. Is there any chance I did something horrifying to you that I can't remember?"

Angel looked at Buffy, then shook his head. "A few unfriendly words now and then… I believe you called Buffy and I 'lust bunnies' once."

"Oh. Sorry."

"I didn't mind that much." said Angel. "So, you're staying?"

"Is that okay?"

"Always." Riley couldn't look any angrier. Buffy was almost afraid his head would implode.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Emily was very confused.

So far she had learned she had been some "psychopathic bitch" (Cordelia's words, not hers) that had tortured Wesley, hit Cordelia, poisoned Nagel (almost to the point of death), and tired to help start an apocalypse. There was also the part where Angel was a vampire—she had walked in on him drinking blood with his game face—but she accepted it. If the first part was true then the vampire thing didn't seem to crazy.

"It's like in those books…" she told Jack as she gently rocked him, trying to get him to fall asleep. She was in the one of the guest bedrooms of the hotel that Angel and his friends apparently owned. "You know, where an ordinary girl gets thrown into a world that she never would have guessed could exist, and then she wonders if it's all it's cracked up to be." Jack yawned. "Of course, it would explain why Daddy was acting so weird. He probably knew I was dangerous. I almost can't believe that it's true…"

She just couldn't wrap her head around all the things she had been told about Faith Lehane. The snarky, self-confident, sexy, dangerous, and slightly neurotic Slayer that had almost ended the world but had instead been put it a coma by Buffy. It didn't seem real… it didn't seem like anything Emily could imagine being. She remembered being that age; she had an obsession with Joey Greffeta then. She could remember hanging out with him, praying he would ask her on dates, crying for hours when she found out he had a girlfriend and no interest in her. She didn't remember spending time with Buffy in graveyards killing vampires.

How could she have forgotten something like that?

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Outside Boyd and Paul were peering into the second story window, Boyd using binoculars. "Is she there?"

"Yes." Said Boyd. "And she has the baby."

"And you said that the girl… Buffy… you said that she helped Echo escape?" asked Paul. He wondered what Echo meant to her. He hadn't been told, but he had theories that it was a previous client who just couldn't let go. The idea made him feel sick.

Boyd nodded slightly. "Yes."

"Why?"

"She knows Echo." Said Boyd.

Paul hated how vague Boyd was all the time. "Meaning…?"

"She knew Echo when she was a real person, Paul."

"As Caroline?" Paul said. Could he have just found his way to saving Caroline? "So she took in Echo all this time because she knew Caroline?"

"No." said Boyd. He adjusted the binoculars, letting Paul get edgier and more impatient. "She knew Faith."

"But Caroline… she's…"

"Not real." Boyd confirmed. "She came from another Dollhouse, and we were told her real identity was a security issue. We were to let her go as Caroline when she was free to go."

"And you would just do it? Like that, just throwing away an entire person?" Paul was dumfounded. All this time he had been looking for someone that wasn't there.

Boyd sighed. "Yes, we would. It's not like we could get her original personality… it was all we could do."

"So who's Faith?"

"Ah, that's the catch." Boyd said, laughing. "We don't know. She doesn't exist."

"Oh."

Paul stood there in silence, watching as Boyd adjusted the binoculars once more. Who was Faith? He was determined to ask the girl—Buffy—as soon as he got a chance to.

"She's there." Boyd confirmed. "I know the tracking device confirmed it, but I can see her , in that room… alright, everyone move in, but try not to confront the blond girl, Buffy. She's incredibly strong and there's no way you can stop her. "If you do run into her…" he motioned to his tazer. "These might slow her down a little."

At his signal they all headed for the doors.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Angel saw the men first, and launched himself at them. They took him out with about eleven or twelve tazers, all at maximum power. What really stopped him was when he was shoved against the wall and a piece of wood splintered off and tore through his stomach.

Wesley yelled, "Wolfram and Hart's attacking!" at the top of his lungs, and to the men's surprise, drew a sword from a case on the wall. He also got taken down within moments.

In a corner Willow was fiercely battling two of the men, muttering under her breath. "Convertimini. Ventus Inter Aquilonem et terram vertere eos. Fac locum relinquat. Ventus Inter Aquilonem et terram vertere eos. Convertimini. Convertimini."

Tara, a few feet away, was having problems. The man she was against growled in frustration as she kept him at bay with wind, similar to Willow's spell, and he broke through as she began to weaken. She screamed as he pinned her to the wall.

"Tara! _NO_!" shrieked Willow. She whipped to face the two men attacking her and shouted, "Aliquam erat volutpat!" they flew away, hitting the floor and not moving. Then she turned to Tara, screaming, "Ventus Inter Aquilonem et terrae libera eam. Lorem ejus ab eo."

The man flew away from Tara, who stumbled and collapsed on the floor. "No! Tara, no!"

Upstairs Gunn and Lorne were fighting for their lives, but they were outnumbered. Both were tazered and shoved aside.

In Emily's room the person that met them at the door was Buffy. "You're not getting past me." She hissed. One of them men advanced, tazer out. "Ooooh, real scary." She knew Emily was shaking in her shoes, but she wasn't afraid of a tazer. "The Initiative had worse. Oh, them? Just a government group that you don't know about. You should look them up sometime."

With that she dropped the first man to his knees and proceeded to take the rest out. Eventually, though, their sheer numbers started to outweigh her strength, and she was electrocuted by the tazers so many times her vision began to blur and she couldn't stand properly. The last thing she heard as she finally fell was Emily screaming and Jack crying.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Hours later the Scooby gang regrouped in the lobby. Angel was bandaged around the middle, and Wesley, Gunn, and Lorne also had various burn marks on them. Willow and Tara were streaked with grime and sweat, Tara with an ice pack to her head. Cordy had slept through almost all of the fight, only coming downstairs when Emily was being dragged away, so she was unhurt. Giles, Riley, and Xander had all been out when the hotel had been attacked.

"I can't believe they took Buffy." Willow mumbled, soothingly stroking Tara's back when the blonde witch moaned. "Are you getting a migraine, baby?"

"I'm fine." Tara said. "Really. What we need to know right now is where Buffy was taken, and why."

"Yeah." Xander agreed. "Because from what I've heard Echo say, where they're going most people come out as someone else."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

When Echo woke up, in the chair with Topher staring down at her, she knew it was wrong. She was trapped. She was a prisoner.

Buffy needed her.

It was a base instinct. She barely knew who Buffy was, or who she was, but she knew Buffy was near, and Buffy was very scared. She quickly answered Topher's questions, routine and ingrained in her mind, and then went straight to the bedroom. Inside she could hear ragged breathing. She knew it was Buffy.

Buffy turned out to be a battered and bruised blond woman, shivering as she hunkered in Echo's bed. "Buffy." Said Echo. It was a fact, not a question.

"Emily?"

"Echo." Echo corrected. "You're Buffy. I… I think I know you." The familiar face was bringing back memories to the surface. "You took me in and kept me safe. Why are you scared? You're so strong."

"Because…" Buffy gulped. "Because there's no way out of here. I've been trying for hours and it's not possible. There's too many people to fight my way out, so I'm stuck." She looked up, face tearstained and bloodstained. "Echo, I don't want to forget who I am."

"You won't." Echo promised. "Come with me… I remember getting out."

And she did. She retraced the entire route, but without getting seen his time. She knew where to go and how to go, and Buffy knew how to drive. They were speeding away in minutes, Echo never knowing that as they hit speed bump after speed bump her GPS chip in her neck was shut off again.

Hours and hours later, they were back at the Hyperion and safely with the Scoobies.

Echo had never been so proud.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy had never been so grateful to someone she had hated before. At the Hyperion she had literally broken down and cried in Echo's arms. It had been a little awkward, but she got over it fast enough. Riley didn't let her out of his sight for the rest of the night. Buffy had a feeling if it hadn't been for Riley Angel would have done the same thing.

They went to Sunnydale the next day, hoping that maybe whoever wanted Echo back would stop following them. On the way Echo explained tearfully how she knew that Jack wasn't hers, even though she loved him with her entire being. Buffy wondered who would be cruel enough to put someone through what Echo was going through just to give their child a temporary mother.

She was mulling over this as she wandered to an abandoned building. There were crashed coming from it, making her sigh automatically. _Great, another vampire._

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Buffy pressed a hand to her forehead. Echo noticed how she had been doing that ever since she got home. "So, she's 'the Key' to something, and this woman, Glory, wants her. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know." Said Giles. "I just don't know."

**A/N: YAY! LONG UPDATE! (Nearly 4,000 word, to be exact). I hope you like it :)**

**On a second note, could everyone reading this do me a favor? I have a friend named Chloe that is a singer, and she posted a video called "Original" – by Chloe… any chance that you could go look at it? If you can't find it her username is DoULilacit2, and you can find the video there. Please, please check it, she's an amazing singer and she hasn't gotten a lot of views or comments.**

**And no, she isn't me… though I will be starting a YouTube channel soon and doing some things similar to what meekakitty and Nanalew do.**

**Translations of the spells (yes, they are lame sounding in English): **

**Convertimini****. ****Ventus Inter Aquilonem****et****terram****vertere****eos.****Fac****locum****relinquat****. ****Ventus Inter Aquilonem****et****terram****vertere****eos.****Convertimini****. ****Convertimini****.**

**Aka**

**Turn back. Wind and Earth, turn them away. Make them leave this place. Wind and Earth, turn them away. Turn back.**

**Aliquam****erat volutpat****!**

**Aka**

**Leave now!**

**Ventus Inter Aquilonem et terrae libera eam. Lorem ejus ab eo.**

**Aka**

**Wind and Earth, free her. Free her from him.**

**Yeah, my spells are lame.**


	9. Family

**Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING BUT THE PLOT THAT IS SPIRALLING OUT OF CONTROL! I also don't own "Turn up the Music" from Lemonade Mouth**

**A/N: I am sick. Very, very sick. I planned on two chapter updates today, one Sunday and one Saturday, but Saturday after an exhausting skating lesson I came home, hacked up my lungs for a while, and then slept until about dinner. After eating I spent the rest of the night completely loopy from peppermint oreos (yes, they do make those now) and laughing at YouTube video with my sister.**

**Enough of my boring life; how are YOU guys? I really do want to know, because half the time I'm the one ranting on and on and on about why I don't write that much or what's going on in my life… you know, besides the fanfiction I write.**

**Two questions before I start the actual story:**

**Does anyone like the movie Lemonade Mouth? I watched it thinking it would be crappy because it's a Disney movie and lately they only produce stuff for money, but I liked it. Yes, it was cheesy. Yes, it was predictable…. But the music was really good.**

**If I started a YouTube channel and did music videos and sketches and stuff like meekakitty and Nanalew, would you watch it? Be honest, now, because I'm not exactly photogenic or funny… unless I'm loopy on lack of sleep and oreos.**

**On to the story! (I know, right now you're screaming "THANK GOD!" at your computer screens. My rant is done.)**

**Updated A/N: I wrote that AN above on Tuesday…. Then gave up writing. I'm writing this on Friday, December 16, 2011 and hopefully I'll post it then to. You have crossxavier to thank for my second attempt at getting this up, because he sent me the sweetest, most insightful review ever and it made me want to post this next chapter even though I'm still sick and busy (Going to see "Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows" later! So excited!). I really appreciated that review, and to reply to it: **

**I'm glad you like the slower development of Echo's character, because it's going to span at least two season, but I'll make it more complex during BtVS season 6. That's kind of why I started writing this; I got fed up with all the oneshots where Buffy goes to the Dollhouse to hire Echo for romantic n9ghts because she loves Faith or something like that. The rest just didn't make sense, or were one chapter and then abandoned. I may leave this for months at a time, but I'll never completely desert it.**

"So she's the Key…" Giles said, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Of course she is… it makes sense, really. It's why she's been bothering you so much more than usual."

Echo was on the stairs, listening. She didn't know what was going on, but she didn't think it sounded good. Dawn was the "Key". Maybe that was why she was so green and brilliant sometimes, when Echo could barely make out the memories in her head. The word that Buffy used was "crazy" but Echo thought it was something else. She heard soft steps behind her.

"Dawn?"

Dawn started guiltily. "Oh… hey. I was—"

"Coming to eavesdrop?"

"Yeah." Danw slid down the stairs, coming to rest next to Echo. "So, you're back? I didn't heart anyone come back… are you okay?"

"I guess…" Echo could hear Jack's cries in her head, faint but very real. "Then tried to make me forget gain, but I didn't. You're Dawn. You like me."

"You're nice, that's why I like you." Said Dawn, patting Echo's arm. "Any news I should know about?"

Echo shrugged. No way was she telling Dawn about being the Key. "Just some crazy, killing-spree big bad with fake-looking hair."

"Ah. The usual." Dawn said, yawning. "Should we go down there and see what's happening, or should we quietly sneak back up to bed and hope that Buffy doesn't hear us?"

Someone cleared their throat, making Echo and Dawn jump. "Too late for that."

"Buffy! I… I heard talking and wondered if you guys were back." Dawn hedged quickly, turning red. "Really, I didn't hear anything, and I was just talking to Echo."

Buffy sighed. "I believe you Dawnie, just go back to bed without waking Mom, okay?"

"Okay." Dawn giggled, allowing Echo to hug her before she trailed back upstairs. Buffy waited until her door shut to drag Echo from the stairs.

"What did she hear?"

"Nothing." Echo found herself being less intimidated by Buffy. After the last few days, Buffy wasn't threatening anymore. "I heard about the Key and this new big bad you fought, but I didn't tell Dawn. Just the big bad part, not that it's after her."

Buffy looked her up and down suspiciously. "Okay… but you can't tell her. She would freak out, it would scare her too badly. I don't need to go chasing after her when she gets scared, not again. I also need you to help me fight this person, even if you can't always…" she looked unsure how to phrase it. "…er… even if ou can get a little crazy or homicidal."

"I understand." Said Echo. And she did, she really did. "I see things all the time… like how Dawn glows."

"You mentioned that a while ago." Buffy said. "You said she was green?"

Giles asked, "Green?"

"Yes." Said Echo. "She's all green and sparkly, but only when I get really confused."

"Confused… what do you mean?" Giles said, leaning forward, hands pressed to his legs instead of his forehead.

Echo pursed her lips for a minute. "Mostly…. Mostly when I get mixed up and confused about who I am. That's when I can see her like that. Her… her body is there, but it's translucent and swirling and beautiful. It's dangerous too, I can feel it."

"Just perfect." Buffy moaned. "Well, there's nothing we can do now. Maybe we can just have the gang research this new big bad tomorrow, but not mention Dawn?"

"Of course." Giles said, standing and gathering his various books.

"I'll just go to bed." Echo said, slipping away quietly while Buffy worked out a few last details with Giles. She crept up the stairs, stopping by Dawn's room to peer in at the peacefully sleeping teen. _She has no idea what's going on… so helpless…._

Echo felt like she should go tell Dawn, prepare her for what was inevitable. Of course, there was the main part of her that didn't want to tell her because of Buffy and because she was too innocent to have to go through something like that.

Echo finally turned away, deciding that if anything she would die to protect Dawn.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

The next day she instead found herself helping carry Buffy's college things out to the waiting car. Buffy had decided to move back home for a while to take care of her Mom and to make sure Dawn was safe. It seemed like a good idea, but Echo could also remember moving the stuff into this room a few weeks earlier.

"You have a lot of CDs." Echo observed, shifting the box of plastic discs. Buffy shrugged. "You like music."

"I'm a fan." She laughed, then grimaced and let the box she was holding slip onto the bed.

"You okay?" asked Riley.

"Oh… yeah. Nothing like getting your ass kicked to make it hurt." She said. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get whoever or whatever that person was soon enough."

Willow, who had been distractedly shoving things into a box, handed it to Tara. "Hey, can you take this to the car?"

"Sure, sweetie." Tara took the box, hefting it awkwardly on one hip. "This is heavy… how many weapons do you keep here anyway?"

Buffy said, "If you knew you'd probably have a heart attack."

"Ah." She walked out, smiling a greeting at Dawn, who was coming back from the car.

"Guys, are you all coming to Tara's party tonight?" Willow asked. Echo remembered the mention of Tara's birthday several days ago. "I know we've been busy between this new big bad and whatever is after Echo, but it would mean a lot to her. It's at the Bronze."

Buffy looked skeptical, but nodded. "Oh, yeah… of course. I'll be there, that's for sure."

"I will too." Riley said. That was just an automatic response, Echo knew. Wherever Buffy went, so did Riley.

"Me too, and so is Anya." said Xander. "I just have to explain to her that traditionally the birthday guy or girl is the one that receives presents, not her."

"I wouldn't miss it." Giles assured her.

Echo said, "Of course I'll go." She would have gone even if Buffy wasn't going. Tara was one of the few people that didn't think she was crazy.

Tara walked back in at that moment, making every look away quickly, pretending to be busy with something. Willow dropped her box on the floor, spilling more CDs and pretty blouses on the floor. "Tara! Hi, I was just, um, going to the car… uh… to drop this off and we were just talking about stuff so do you want to come with me?"

"Sure." Tara had to know what was going on, but she didn't say anything. Instead she grinned shyly and winked at Echo as she left with Willow, mouthing "Will you be at the party?"

Echo nodded. She wouldn't miss it for the world.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

"What should I get her?" Echo asked, sprawled out on Dawn's bed. "I don't know much about birthdays… there's one memory, I think it's from Taffy… there was a cake and a little boy that shoved her face into the cake."

"Oh." Dawn cringed. "Ouch."

Echo shrugged. "Nah… she—I mean I—beat him to a body pulp."

"Oh." Dawn twirled around the room, arms stretched out to make her scarf ripple in the air like water. Echo thought she looked like a bird with her thin frame. "Hey, how does this look?

The dress itself was cerulean blue and just as gorgeous as all the toners. Honestly, Echo didn't think there was a way for Dawn not to look pretty. It seemed to be a Scooby thing. "You look great, just like the other ones."

"Are you lying to make me choose one?" Dawn asked, giving another twirl, but slower to showcase the dress rather than the scarf. "Did Buffy put you up to this?"

"No and no. I think that you look great in all of them and that whatever you pick will be fine." Said Echo. "Besides, it's not like this is prom. Prom is some sort of dance, right?" she had overheard some teens in the grocery store talking about prom in high, trilling voices, discussing dresses and dates. Echo had a feeling that there hadn't been a lot of proms in her past, but they sounded complicated.

"No." Dawn admitted. "I think of it as practice for prom, if I get asked. Like that will ever happen…"

"Of course you will!" Echo was horrified that Dawn would even think she wouldn't be asked. "You're so nice, and you don't put people down… there's got to be someone that will ask you."

"I'm weird." Dawn explained. Her fingers toyed with the lacy edging of the scarf. "I'm out for all sorts of unknown reasons—demon kidnappings, mostly, because that does happen sometimes—I get injured and can't explain why, my sister was wanted for a murder several years ago… the list goes on. I've heard people say, 'Strange things happen at the Summers' house'."

Echo laughed. "But they do."

"I know, I just wish it wasn't so obvious."

Echo wished she could say something believable that would make Dawn feel better, but she had the vaguest feeling that anything she said would sound old and stuffy. "I guess it can suck sometimes."

Dawn said, "Yeah, it really can."

"But you've seen all sorts of things other people haven't. You get to know what goes bump in the night. That's got to be something, right?"

"Yeah." Dawn said, sighing. She dropped the scarf and stepped into the bathroom with another dress. "But it's bad, because I know all the bad things that kill my friends…"

"You know what you do when things get bad, right?" Echo asked. A song had popped into her head, one that she had heard Dawn singing.

"What?"

"Turn up the music."

A giggle, a pause, and then singing. "Take a look around, who would have thought we'd all be here? So let's mess around 'cause the future is unclear. We got nothing better to do, we're just trying to get through. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah…"

Echo grinned. She wasn't that old after all… "Let the music groove you, let the melody move you, feel the beat and just let go. Get the rhythm into your soul, let the music take you anywhere it wants to. When we're stuck and can't get free, no matter what, we'll still be singing come on, come on, turn up the music! It's all we got, we're gonna use it. Come on, come on, turn up the music… yeah…"

Dawn burst from the bathroom, laughing and singing and dancing. "Come on, come on, turn up the music! It's all we go, we're gonna use it. Come on, come on, turn up the music!" her dress was a soft, muted moss green, complementing her eyes. Echo liked it better than all the other ones.

"That one!" she declared, pointing. "I like that dress."

Dawn stopped mid-ballet leap and mid-chorus, toppling to the floor. "Huh?"

"That dress, it's perfect." Echo said. "And you're a good singer."

Dawn blushed. "Thanks. You are to, you know… I never heard Faith sing, so I never knew if she was good."

Echo could remember singing before. "I don't think it's me."

"Someone else, then?"

"Yeah… Jenny. Or maybe it was Jill, or Jordan… I can't really remember. I just know there was a song that I sang over and over. I think it was somewhere big and I was backup."

"Cool! You were famous?" Dawn asked, glazed fangirl eyes setting in. She adopted a pose of ultimate concentration, staring at Echo.

"No, I was there for protection or something." Echo said. There was shooting, and fire, and a screaming girl tied by a rope hanging from a catwalk.

"Oh." Dawn unglued herself from Echo and walked to the mirror. "Makeup?"

"No, you like fine. Shouldn't you get dressed in something more comfortable? We won't be going for a while. Isn't there a Scooby meeting or something?"

Dawn nodded, dashing into the bathroom with pants and a shirt. "Yeah, I forgot."

"Then hurry up!" Echo threw a pillow at the door. "Don't want to miss another meeting about the tings that make you different."

"It would just be devastating to miss that." Dawn teased. "Stop throwing things."

**O.o.O.o.O.**

At the Magic Box Echo kept getting the feeling that something was horribly wrong. She kept thinking there were footsteps when there weren't, and hovered near Dawn, driving the girl insane.

"Seriously, what's wrong?" Dawn asked for the hundredth time. "If there's nothing wrong you can go research or something, it might be helpful."

"Nothing." Replied Echo tersely. She was sure she had heard something that time…

And suddenly people were screaming and batting their hands at invisible attackers. Dawn shrieked and started flailing her arms to her left until Echo smashed into the invisible assailant and shoved him/her/it away.

"Are you okay?" Echo asked as she forced Dawn under a table.

Dawn nodded. She was panting. "Yeah. Where's Buffy?"

Buffy came crashing through the training room's door and started kicking at one of the invisible attacker. "She's right there."

Echo wanted to help, but the familiar terror from her capture by Spike was coursing through her veins again, and her head was blurring. Dawn asked, "Are _you _okay?"

"Uh-uh, I feel kind of sick." Echo said. "I'll be fine… it happens sometimes when I get scared."

"You're scared?"

"Hello, invisible people!"

One of the said invisible people smashed at the desk's top, and Echo kicked out blindly. She hit something, heard a grunt, and flailed her legs around until she thought she could hear receding steps, Then again, with all the screeching and banging it was hard to hear anything.

Tara was yelling something now, it sounded like she could see what ever it was attacking everyone. Echo was too scared to leave until she saw the feet of a demon materialize about twelve feet away from the desk.

"What is _that_?" Dawn asked. Her nose wrinkled. "It's ugly."

The demon heard her and seemed to take offence, charging at them. Echo pulled what fragments of courage she had left and charged at the thing, knees wobbly. She had the feeling she looked very, very drunk. Then it was blurry and there was white spots everywhere and she passed out.

_It was pure white, blazing white. Clean, like the Dollhouse. Maybe it was the Dollhouse._

_Echo turned. All around her she could see little strings, looping around her waist and then spanning across the great white. They were stunning beautiful, as though woven from life itself._

Oh._ She realized._ They are.

_Each one went far enough until it could expand into a molten ball, projecting separate lives on each one. There was only one that caught her attention._

_It was the thickest and by far the brightest. She could feel heat radiating from it and saw that the thread penetrated her chest where here heart was. It led out to the biggest molten ball, on which Faith was racing across a graveyard, after something. Bu8ffy seemed to be behind her._

_It didn't make much sense or have sound. Echo stared for the longest time, letting the heat in her chest lull her into a blissful sleep…_

"Echo?"

"Dawnie?" Was Dawn in the white world too? Echo opened her eyes to the Magic Box ceiling and Dawn's face. "What happened?"

"Well… you charged at the demon but passed out before you reached him, Tara's evil parents tried to take her because they said she had demon in her but she doesn't because Spike hit her and it hurt him, and then her parents left because we threatened to beat them up. Oh, then I came back here to make sure you weren't dead."

"I appreciate that." She sat up and carefully stretched out her arms and legs. "I seem to be unharmed as well as not dead."

"That's always a good sign." Dawn said. "You think you'll be fine for the party?"

"Always." She couldn't remember the dream—it was slipping away, like all her dreams did—but she had a feeling that Faith could always party.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

The party was great. Echo had never seen Tara smile as much as she did that night, and everyone was dancing, laughing, drinking… it felt like home.

That is, until Echo saw the strange man walk in and introduce himself to someone as Paul. When he asked for "Faith" her heart nearly stopped. She knew him.

He had kept her from running away from the Dollhouse.

**A/N: DA DA DA! That can't be good, can it? And yes, this was not spellchecked.**


	10. Fool For Love

**Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING I SWEAR! STOP SENDING COPS TO MY HOUSE!**

**Kidding. But I don't own anything.**

**A/N: This is late. I know. I tried so hard to actually get it up for Christmas, but I don't have the willpower anymore. Anyway, as you read this keep in mind that I have no idea what happens to people that get stabbed, much less Slayers. All I know is that she passed out eventually because Buffy mentions it when she's talking to Riley…**

**Also, if the actual lines from the show are screwed up, blame it on my evil, EVIL sister who is currently insisting she can't go any longer without anime (it's been a stinking week, while I've been Buffy-deprived for months now) and my dad just took the computer cable with the wifi from the computer so he can plug it into the DVD player to make it connect to Netflix or something equally complicated. Thanks to her you might not be reading this until Wednsday or Thursday (sorry again).**

**Seriously, I am really, **_**really**_** sorry, for both the events I can control and the ones I can't.**

**(also, go read my sister's strange Phineas and Ferb fics—don't ask, she's obsessed with cartoons and anime—if you want. Her username is Krazy K0 or something… though I doubt any Buffy fans watch Phineas and Ferb… I dunno.. I just don't feel sympathy for people that aren't real, just drawings. They're too silly and demented-looking for me to "feel their pain", much less write fics that can be taken seriously or even read at all. **

**But I digress. And keep in mind this is just me ranting, I have nothing against anyone that watches anime or cartoons… I'm just internet-less and vengeful.)**

**(Like Anya!)**

Echo was on Dawn's bed, as per usual, talking about whatever Dawn had done at school that day. Lately, after the panic attack during the invisible demon attack, Buffy had been leaving Echo at home, wanting her to be "safe". Echo knew she could endanger patrols, so she went along with it. It was much more fun to stay at home with Dawn anyway, much better than fighting vampires.

"—and that's why I can never go back to math class ever again!" Dawn was ranting. Something about a boy—there were so many that echo could barely keep track of them all—and some incident that was embarrassing and would make the aforementioned guy supposedly hate Dawn forever.

"It can't be that bad." Said Echo, as usual. "I mean, it's not like they'll remember forever. Even if they do you shouldn't let them get to you. Ignore them."

"I can't do that, it goes against all laws of the social hierarchy that is high school." Dawn said. She flopped onto the bed, jouncing Echo off. "My bad."

Echo righted herself and smiled. "I don't mind."

Dawn opened her mouth as though to say something when the doorbell rang. "Oh, that must be Cassandra!"

"Cassandra?"

Dawn turned in her beeline for the door. "Yeah, she's going to take me and a bunch of people to a movie. You want to come?"

Echo was touched Dawn thought she was cool enough to hang out with. "Really? I'd love to! But…"

"As Giles would say, 'Oh dear.' What is it?"

Echo sighed. "I might pass out, or something could happen with my memories that would make me go psycho and kill you all. Might put a damper on the movie part of the night."

"Okay." Said Dawn. "Look on the bright side; your sense of humor is already coming back, minus all the rude Faith-related parts."

"Really?"

"Really."

Echo was staring at the doorway long after Dawn bid her goodbye and the door slammed shut. She was getting her sense of humor back? Did that mean memories would follow, like a river after a stream? It was kind of scary, thinking about being this person she barely knew. Echo knew that Faith had been evil and had hurt everyone here (except Dawn, apparently, who technically hadn't existed). Did she really want to be that person again?

Echo stared into the mirror across the room. "I want to be…"

Echo? Faith? Caroline? Any of the other thin shells of people in her head?

"Maybe this is for a reason…" Echo mused, rolling on her stomach and thoughtfully looking at a pink stuffed bunny. "You know? Like now I have a chance to live my life as someone who's loved and cared for instead of Faith. Maybe I'm supposed to forget all the bad things…"

And then there was the incident with Paul. Echo couldn't remember who he was or what he meant to her, but he had scared her. She had hung at the outskirts of the party, waiting until he got frustrated and left. Still, the idea that her past was following her like a black stormcloud was a little disconcerting. It made the house suddenly eerie instead of quietly peaceful, the dark outside menacing rather than a blanket of sleep and safety.

Echo dropped the bunny and uneasily peered out the window. There was nothing unusual outside, not even a vampire—though that qualified as quite normal in Sunnydale—and she thought that it was just her imagination. The bad part about gaining an understanding of the world and coming out of her "doll" state of mind was that Echo was finding more and more things scared her than before.

Then there were voices, one low and male… and even familiar. There was a high-pitched yelp of pain. Echo thought of Dawn immediately, but it just didn't sound like her. Echo knew if Dawn was hurt she would know in a second. That was when she heard the male voice, much clearer this time, say, "Hello? Is anyone home? Echo?"

It was Riley. Echo stared for half a second more at the mirror and then called back to him. "What?"

"Buffy's hurt!"

For an unknown reason those two simple words set her veins on fire, and Echo felt her heart pounding. How was Buffy hurt? Was that even a possibility? There were too many questions in her head and not enough answers.

Echo clambered down the stairs, turning her ankle on some article of clothing that seemed to be Dawn's, but persisted. When she got to the kitchen she saw Buffy sliding down the side of the wall, unsupported by Riley. He was rummaging through the cabinets. "Damn it!" something hit the ground with a metallic thud. "Where do you keep everything?"

"Bathroom…" Buffy moaned. "Not in the kitchen."

Riley slammed the cabinet door shut. "Oh." He disappeared into the next room, evidently headed for the bathroom.

"Buffy?" Echo ventured timidly. She was scared by the sight of the one person she trusted to keep her and Dawn and the other Scoobies safe bleeding out on the stark kitchen floor. She mustered what courage she had left and got on her hands and knees, crawling over to the Slayer.

"The vampires got one good shot in this time." Buffy said ruefully, coughing and wincing when her body rocked forward. "Okay, _that_ hurt. Wonder if it hurt vamps this much when I stake them…?"

Echo wondered if she was imagining the slightly loopy expression on Buffy's face. "Yeah… I don't really think that matters…"

"Nope." Buffy agreed. Her breath was starting to come in shorter gasps. "I'm getting really dizzy."

Echo tried to search her mind for any times that she could remember being stabbed, but there were none. Only hazy memories where a man was chasing her through the woods and trying to kill her.

Rey come back in and dumped a pile of medical supplies on the table. "We need to move you, okay? In case your Mom comes home."

"Okay." Buffy agreed, feebly trying to stand. "Oooowwww… hey, is this how you felt when Adam stabbed you? 'Cause I'm feeling a lot more sympathy now."

Riley's face was as pained as Buffy's, maybe even more so. Echo did think he was too controlling of her, but at least he cared. "Stay, I can carry you."

He gently slid his arms around her and lifted her, eyebrows sliding down farther every time she cried out or grabbed his arm and asked him to stop moving for a second. Echo wandered around helplessly, hovering near to the couple as she tried to think of something, _anything _that she could do. As usual, the fear-haze was clouding her mind until she couldn't see a thing. It was like someone was withholding the memories on purpose, laughing at her as she struggled to breathe.

When they got to the bedroom Riley put Buffy on the bed and then told Echo to try and keep out of the way, leaving her standing in the hallway with a thousand questions on her tongue and a heavy heart falling through the middle of the earth.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Paul was more than frustrated. He had gone to the birthday party of a girl named Tara Maclay, who allegedly knew Echo/Faith/Caroline—he wasn't sure what to call her at that point—and he hadn't seen her anywhere. The blonde girl… Buffy. Buffy had been there, he was sure of that, but she had slipped away while he was trying to get in, and he hadn't seen her.

But he had seen her tonight, in the graveyard.

Paul had been wandering the moonless streets of Sunnydale looking for any clue as to where Echo was hiding when he heard what sounded like a fight. He had ended up in the closest graveyard, and there he had seen Buffy. She was beating the crap out of some guy with a malformed face when he grabbed her weapon—it had looked like a wooden stake—and turned it against her, jamming it into her stomach. She had pulled it out, but it was clear at that point that she was going to lose. Paul had been about to jump in, with thoughts that he could get her to tell him where Echo was if he saved her, but another man had plowed the attacking man over before he could finish off Buffy. The man, who Buffy called Riley, had done the strangest thing Paul had seen; he jammed a wooden stake into the malformed man's face, who promptly exploded into dust.

Paul still wasn't too sure about that… it could have been a trick of light, or maybe the attacker hadn't been a man. Maybe he wasn't a person. All Paul knew was that Riley had run over to Buffy and gently cradled her in his arms. He finally managed to get her up, and the two had staggered out of the grave yard and into the night.

Now he was crouched outside the house they had gone into, and he could have sworn he'd heard Echo's voice, saying, "What?" to Riley's call to see if anyone was home. There was some swearing on his part, and muffled groans, but the rest was too quiet to hear. Paul had even pressed his ear to the door (feeling very much like a stalker) and still couldn't make out the words. Eventually it sounded like Buffy was carried upstairs, followed by the person that sounded like Echo. He carefully made his way around to the front door, hoping that maybe if Echo answered he would have a chance at getting her to come with him.

He finally made it, but slid behind one of the bushes, feeling like he would be seen. Instead nothing happened for about three hours while crickets chirped and a bird sang for a while, then left.

"This is ridiculous." He told himself after a while, and stood up in time to come face-to-face with a teenage girl holding a purse behind her like it was a weapon.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice shaking slightly.

Paul said, "I… I was just… I was lost?"

She girl struck out more viciously than someone her size should have been able to, slamming the purse into his face and running to the door, screaming, "Buffy! BUFFY! _BUFFY_!" the whole way. She had shut and locked the door behind her before he was even on his feet.

Vision less reliable than he was used to, Paul staggered to the door and rang the doorbell. There was still a chance that Echo would answer, even if it meant that now he might have to fight off both Riley and the girl to talk to Echo.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

Echo heard Dawn's shrill screams, and she was the first to get downstairs. Dawn was huddled against the stairway, glaring at the door like she was daring it to open and let the evil at the other side get her. Echo wrapped her arms around Dawn's neck in a fast and clumsy embrace, then asked, "What is it? Vampires?" Word could have gotten out that the Slayer was injured, and there was a good chance that they would come and wait for her to leave the house.

"No…" Dawn gasped. "Some guy, I think I saw him at Tara's party… where's Buffy?"

"She got hurt." Echo said. Dawn's eyes grew round as marbles. "She's going to be okay, I think, but she's up[stairs and there's no way she can fight anyone off for a while."

"Riley?"

"He's helping her, I think." Echo wished with her heart and soul that her head would stop spinning for at least a minute. Before she could get in another word the doorbell rang and both of them froze.

"Do we answer?" Dawn whispered.

"Maybe… I guess we have to…" Echo said, uncertain. She got up and opened the door, poised to fight. The man from the party… Paul, that was his name… held up his arms defensively, but dropped them when he saw her.

"Echo?" he asked.

Echo nodded shortly. She could hear dawn panting behind her, too scared to move.

"I've been looking everywhere for you." He said. He made it sound like he was some long-lost lover of hers', or a relative. "You… you used to be Caroline. And Faith."

"I know." Echo said, proud that he voice didn't crack. Not even a little.

"Then you have to come with me, because there are a lot of people after Faith and Caroline, and you can't trust anyone." Paul said. He looked like he expected her to just follow him mindlessly. Echo could remember the days when she was blank, an innocent doll. Well, now she could think and feel and fight, and she knew in her heart he could only bring her suffering.

"No."

Paul was shocked. "What do you mean by 'no'?" He asked. "You don't understand how much danger you could be in at this house, with these people. How can you know that you can trust them?"

"I can think of a thousand reasons why." Said Echo. "From the minute I met them—save the whole 'Buffy-thinking-I-was-Faith-and-trying-to-beat-me-up' thing—they've done nothing but protect me. Buffy saved me from Dracula, she helped me fight when dawn got kidnapped, she rounded up all the different versions of me when Toth split me into about twenty different people, and when I got take by the Dollhouse she found me and she made sure I got back here. I have more than that, but I think you get what I'm trying to say."

"You have to come with me." He pleaded. "They could be trying to trick you." He almost seemed like a love-stricken puppy.

Echo shook her head. "No, I really don't. I have absolutely zero reason to trust you, and the only memory I have of you involves your fist and my face."

She slammed the door shut and locked it, heart pounding. It felt like she had just surrendered a huge part of herself to her new life as Echo. He—Paul—was connect to the Dollhouse, and they were the ones that could fix her.

Did that mean she didn't want to be Faith again?

Was she wrong?

**O.o.O.o.O.**

The same thing still bothered Echo on patrol. With Buffy still at home, trying to heal, she had gone on patrol with Riley, Willow, Xander, and Anya. Riley was creeping ahead of them, and he turned to gesture. Echo knew he had explained that hand motion to her earlier, but she couldn't recall what it meant. Instead she took a huge handful of chips from the bag Xander was holding.

"What's with the hand move?" Xander asked. "D'you see that? Does that, like, mean something?"

"It's code." Willow told him, watching Riley intently as he turned back at them and repeated the hand gesture. "I think it breaks down to 'choo-choo.'" She tried the same gesture, like the kind that Echo saw Dawn make to get truck drivers to honk their horns.

Anya looked bored, taking a handful of chips herself. "It probably means to follow him. That, or wait here for him."

"Hey Riley! What's the—" Xander mimicked Riley's hand gesture "—all about?"

"It means yell real loud, so the vampires who don't know we're coming will have a sporting chance."

Echo giggled at the expression of consternation on Riley's face. "LIKE THIS?" she yelled as loudly as she could.

"No!"

"See?" Xander said. "Now he's all mad and sarcastic."

As they continued through the graveyard and harassed Riley, Echo couldn't help but get lost in her thoughts again. if Buffy was going to go to the past to dig up answer, then so was she.

**O.o.O.o.O.**

The first place she went was the Bronze. It had a familiar air to it whenever she was there, but with friends around she couldn't think about that. Now, with nothing but the steady beat of the music pounding in her chest, and the alcohol coursing through her veins, Echo thought maybe she could rediscover Faith. She wasn't going to giver Faith up completely, not without know what it was like to be her.

Her mind started to get fuzzier as she drank more and more, until she stopped. She was afraid she would lose herself if she didn't. For a while she just sat, thinking about what she could remember.

Faith was a fighter, and she did like to party. But she also seemed to lack any sort of childhood, as was displayed by her loyalty to the Mayor, who Buffy claimed treated Faith like a daughter. Echo could feel the emptiness in her heart when she tried to imagine a Mom and a Dad, but it was because she couldn't remember anything. No family, no annoying relatives, no nothing.

It was getting too hot, and Echo shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She knew, from what she had heard, that right about now if she was Faith she would out on that dance floor in the smuttiest outfit possible, dancing her heart out. That was the last thing Echo wanted… she wanted to be at home, snuggled up on the couch with Dawn.

As she walked home, stopping to glance at the graveyard, she wondered if that was why she shunned Paul so easily. Had her life back then been that miserable? Had Faith partied so hard because she wanted to drown out her life with alcohol and sex? Was she supposed to never know this past? Would it break her if she did?

There were too many question left unanswered, but Echo gave in to the comfort that not knowing left her. It meant that she could keep being friends with Dawn and Buffy, and it meant that the Scoobies would eventually come to see her as harmless, maybe part of the family. If Faith got back into her head… she would remember all the horror, all the things that made the Scoobies hate her. She didn't want that.

As soon as she gave up Echo felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest. All that was left was to stay safe from the Dollhouse. Sure, maybe it would be harder to find out what they were up to without her memories, but she realized that if they didn't want to get her Faith memories back from the Dollhouse then she and the Scoobies wouldn't have to go after the Dollhouse.

The drunken haze she was in was making it hard for Echo to think. She found herself suddenly in front of the Summers' house, her home, when her vision blurred and she was somewhere else.

_.. she was standing, on the porch. Some sort of leather top was contrasting her breathing, with a dark-colored jean jacket covering her shoulders and very exposed waist. Behind her a younger Mrs. Summers was staring in astonishment at the snow outside. It was snowing. _

"_Can you believe that?" She asked, shaking her head. "And they say there won't be any sun, not all day!"_

No sun… Buffy can save Angel! _Echo thought, but she realized very abruptly she wasn't Echo at all. She was Faith, and she was in Faith's body. She was remembering all sorts of things. Happy ones and sad ones and the ones buried so deep in her memory that even when she tried to think about them she could feel her brain shy away from them._

_It was too much to handle. The rush of pure happiness at seeing the snow for the first time in years, blocking out all the bad memories. Faith/Echo blacked out before she could soak in the snow for a minute more._

And then Echo was lying on the ground in front of the Summers' house, shaking and sweating and burning up while she froze to death. She ended up being carried inside by Buffy, who was much better and said she had gotten some information out of Spike. There was heated, blurry chaos everywhere for a while, and something about Mrs. Summers having to be at the hospital for observation, but it went over Echo's head. She didn't know what to think anymore. There was nothing left from her memory of Faith except for the joy that was almost too painful to think about. For someone to be _that _happy about snow… they had to have had a terrible life.

Eventually she got better, after a few hours of sleep. Dawn was curled up on the couch, watching TV with one eye and Echo with the other. "How did the soul-searching go for you?" she asked. Her voice was bitter, probably because of her Mom and what Echo thought she had heard.

Echo shrugged. "I got really drunk, and I blacked out. Is that Faith-like?"

"Not the blacking out part… unless you had a threeway or something, which would make you very Faith-like."

"Oh." Said Echo. "I do know one thing, though."

"Yeah?"

"No matter how much it scares me or what it costs, I have to find her again." Echo knew that it would be hard and painful, but Faith was too broken to be left to die, to fade into the mist. She deserved help, and Echo was determined to do just that.

**A/N: YAY for sappy endings and no spellchecking again!**


End file.
